Shots and Sound Analysis

Shots and Sound Analysis on the film 'Orphan'

At the beginning of the opening sequence Orphan, we are introduced by an extreme close-up of a young girls eyes. This shot is used to introduce the main character of the film and gives the audience a glimpse of what they should expect to see from the film. The eyes are the main focus of this shot, which are showing the emotion of the young girl looking sad or angry.  Not the entire face of the character is being presented to the audience. This leaves the audience thinking about what the character is going to look like when her face and body are revealed and what kind of role she will be playing during the film. This links in with the genre of the film as there is always going to be a protagonist in the film and this could be the introduction to the protagonist in this film.

The non-diegetic music playing in the background is very quiet and gradually gets louder during the beginning shot. The beginning shot quickly and sharply cuts from the eyes to the mouth of the young girl. The shot cuts very quickly giving the audience no time to visualize what shot they may be seeing next. This is showing the character has a very large voice, meaning she is one of the main focuses of the film in the things she says and the actions that follow her words. This has an effect on the audience as it makes the audience think about the possible things this presumably innocent girl could possibly do as so far she is presented as an innocent young girl. This links in with the genre of the film as it questions the audience’s opinion straight away on the young girl, and questions their first opinions on the girl. It leaves the audience puzzled to what she is going to do.

The two parts to the non-diegetic music are contrasting. There is a mixture of heavy and soft sounds, mixed together. The heavy side of the music could be representing the idea of the Thriller, as it is showing the dark and spooky idea of the genre of the film being a very ‘heavy’ and dominant part in the overall story line. The softer music is representing the young main character in the first shot, showing the more innocent side to the young girl. The two parts of the non-diegetic are contrasting, but they also work together very well as they are showing the two different moods of the opening sequence and how two moods can reflect on each other and change the way the non-diegetic music can be viewed. This has an effect on the audience as it makes the audience think about the possible meaning behind the two parts and also makes the audience think about what the parts could represent. This links in with the genre of the film as it is showing the progression which is going to happen, as there will be an innocent side where the main character denies causing the trouble which links in with the heavy side of the non-diegetic music.

Diegetic sounds are used such as the opening of the nail polish bottle. The diegetic sounds are used to group the non-diegetic music and the diegetic sounds together. This is adding realism to the opening sequence as it is adding everyday sounds into the unrealistic non-diegetic music to show some kinds of realistic sounds within the opening sequence. The close-ups of the nail polish bottles shows the sharp ways the character  opens the bottle, giving the audience an idea of the characters personality being very fierce and strong. This has an effect on the audience as it sees the main character being more than an innocent girl, she may be seen as applying make-up being innocent, but the way she does things such as opening nail varnish reflects the bad side of her. This links in with the genre of the film as it shows the two sides, or two faces that the characters are going to have and shows us that the story line is going to have different sides to the main story line which links in with mystery of the genre.

Panning from right to left of unknown documents. This camera movement is unusual as normal panning shots would be the correct way being from left to right. As this is already questioning the audience on the weird opening to the next shot, it is also revealing mystery documents that are unreadable. This is teasing the audience as it is showing them some kind of documents are going to be involved which leaves the audience feeling puzzled and excited to find out what the documents are about. This has an effect on the audience as it makes the audience think about the possible things that the documents could contain due to the glimpse that they see. This also shows the genre of the film as it adds mystery to the film as leaves the audience questioning the meaning behind the documents.

Aerial shot of the scissors cutting up pieces of paper.  This camera shot is showing the action that is happening within the shot.  The pieces of paper that are being cut up have messages on but are not visible to the audience. This leaves the audience thinking about what the possible message could be on the pieces of paper and why the character is cutting the pieces of paper in half. This links in with the genre of the film as it leaves the audience clueless and suspicious to why the paper is being destroyed.

To conclude with, the movie ‘Orphan’ uses a large variety of both shots and sound to show the features that a psychological thriller should include.All of these shots and sound link in with the genre of the film in many different ways which I have talked about above. This Physiological Thriller makes the genre of the film very clear just by looking at the opening sequence analysis in the ways they use both sound and shots for an effect.