ERT - Technical analysis of 'Hide and Seek'

1. White text saying “first day of the new year” with a mysterious music playing in the background cutting to
2. XCU of the girls eye
3. CU of the girls hand with a spinning background. Main focus on her hand, cutting to
4. CU of a young girls china doll
5. CU of her face smiling with a still spinning background. She is lying down.
6. Worms eye view of the sky spinning. POV.
7. Tracking shot to show a CU of the girl on a roundabout
8. Gradually tracks out to show her mum pushing the roundabout
9. Start to here the girl laughing with her mum
10. LS of the whole park
11. Selective focus on a man who is walking towards the roundabout
12. Music fastens and we start to hear dialogue between the mother and daughter
13. CU of the man smiling cutting to
14. CU of the woman smiling
15. CU of the man
16. Cu of the woman
17. Cross cut to the mum in the kitchen. No lights are on
18. She removes pills from their packet and takes a swig of wine
19. Selective focus on a picture of the family in the bottom left corner of the screen
20. Cross cut to the mum walking into the girls bedroom (no mood music)
21. Mum searches the room whilst saying dialogue such as “ has anyone seen a little girl in here”
22. Opens the door suddenly
23. Then hear a giggle
24. Mum moves over to her bed
25. Sits down
26. POV of the mum looking at the girl
27. POV of the mums reply to the girl
28. See the girl cuddling up to the creepy doll as seen previously
29. Mum leans down and kisses her head

From doing this technical analysis of the film “hide and seek” I can see how the mood and tension of the storyline is created in the opening sequence of a film. As our group have decided we want to use the main character of a young girl and so did this film, therefore it helped me to see what we could incorporate in our opening 2 minutes of a horror film. Conventions such as the doll carried with the girl and the use of a playground we had previously thought of and still think we would like to use. A lot of close ups were used in the sequence and I think they worked very effectively. Little dialogue was used in the clip which I think created more tension and fear for the viewer. The mood music was mysterious and deep, as well as quite sad using instruments such as a drum and piano and violin. The cutting rate was quite quick and went from person to person rather than just locations. The locations used were a park and the inside of their house. The house used wasn’t a typical location as it seemed quite modern, however the lights were down so it had a dark spooky effect still to it.