I have chosen this scene in particular for many reasons. It starts as a Point of View shot of Jacks workspace, his wife is finally reading all the work he has done. The lighting in the scene is considered natural apart from further in the room on the balcony it is high key lighting. The sound is distorted, high pitched and fluent which makes me think of a crazed animal which is fairly unnerving. It then cuts to an over the shoulder shot of a silhouette who I can presume is Jack due to his figure. The mise-en-scéne would suggest that religion is a big factor, you can see throughout the balcony at the top it is full of religious crosses which brings the religious element. The colour however, in the scene, has no red whatsoever unlike the usual convention of the connotation of red seen in other horror films the colour is predominantly white this makes me think that, although the non-diegetic sound is telling me otherwise, nothing 'bad' is going to happen.
The non-diegetic sound gets quieter as Jack says "How do you like it?" with the camera still looking over his shoulder. I feel the camera is placed on his shoulder to make us feel like we are with him, one could even argue we are the devil on his shoulder which makes me feel almost responsible for his wife's fright. She is currently holding a bat which suggests that she is/was expecting to use it to defend herself, that she is looking for something and expecting that she is in danger. The camera is currently static whilst jack walks over to her, I know it's jack because I can hear his voice but he is still a silhouette which makes me feel like there is something wrong with him. She screams and we can't see him so naturally my reaction would be to assume he's looking manically.
A swift cut brings us and the camera in front of Jack. Religious crosses are still predominant due to his shirt presenting us with many crosses and/or inverted crosses. The camera tracks and pans Jack over to his desk. A close up of his wife is then shown to express/emphasis her fright in seeing the man she loves whilst the non-diegetic sound becomes almost non-existant but still faintly there. I feel this is used to keep the insanity but allow the actors to converse.
There is a cut to a mid shot of Danny with loud high pitched music and Jack's voice can be heard in a very distorted way, this gave me the assumption that Danny is hearing Jacks voice and that what he is hearing is 'all in his head'. The camera slowly zooms into Danny's face turning the mid shot into a close up which makes you feel on edge. That something is going to happen. The mise-en-scéne would suggest that something bad will happen as typical horror conventions begin to be seen, Danny is wearing a red sweater and the connotation of red being blood and death. A red filter is then put over the camera as we cut to the elevator motif. A liquid, presumably blood is seen surrounding the immediate area and due to the red filter everything we can see is red and as the liquid clears the way, Jacks voice is still being heard seemingly even more crazy. I feel that the camera being placed surrounded by blood makes us feel that this is what Danny is seeing currently, this is only enforced by hearing the same non-diegetic sounds as we did when the camera was zooming in on Danny. Parallel editing is also used here, we are able to see Jack and his Wife conversing and the scared look of Danny seemingly happening at the same time this is again enforced by the elevator shot cutting to Jack and his Wife which makes the two events with no correlation almost intertwine with each other.
Immediately as we cut back to Jack there is a red door behind him. A colour that wasn't seen at the start can now be seen clear as day. Instantly this makes me feel like something 'bad' will happen. We can also see behind Jacks head there is an exit sign which is previously seen in the close up of his wife. It is reasonable to assume both parties have switched position and it gives me the feeling this has purposefully been done to imply that Jack is blocking or now in front of the exit.
The crazed non-diegetic sound is still being played throughout this whole sequence. Inverted crosses can be seen everywhere as there is a shot reverse shot between Jack and his wife. His wife is wearing a chequered shirt, there is also crosses in the windows and chequered curtains which allow crosses to be seen almost everywhere, this gives us a feeling of the supernatural and makes me feel like there is something unholy surrounding Jack and his wife. As the mid shot of his wife slowly tracks her while she walks backwards still gripping the bat in defense, Jack is also being tracked to show that they are maintaining distance between each other. The camera makes me feel like I'm both characters due to it's positioning, as Jack's wife talks we are in the Point of view of Jack and as Jack talks we are in the Point of view of his wife, editing also tells me I'm both characters because you can see their eye lines matching.
1016 words.
