Scream

The opening scene for "Scream" is very intense and unusual, we first hear the phone ringing, while the production logos are shown, then we hear desperate screaming. This grabs the audiences attention and also puts the audience at unease. The scene is then cut to a close-up of a phone ringing, the camera tracks the phone as it gets picked up by a girl. She then starts to have a conversation and claims that he has called the wrong number, the phone rings again and she responds in a slightly more aggressive manner and again she hangs up on him. The scene then cuts to a long mid shot of the house she is living in, this gives the audience a sense of unease as they feel that someone is watching her. We then see her trying to make popcorn and she is disturbed when the phone rings again, the same person responds to her, and she starts to have a conversation about horror movies with the stranger. He then freaks her out by suggesting that he is looking at her, she then desperately starts to search outside to find the stranger.

The wolf barking in the distant and slow piano notes puts the audience at unease, we also see the popcorn rising as the tension between the conversation rises.

The two characters start to get aggressive with their conversation, we see the close-up of the girls face as she slowly starts to freak out and get worried as he starts threatening her. We then see the camera tracking the girl as she desperately runs around the house locking every door, the doorbell starts ringing as she starts to get paranoid.

She then starts to retaliate by threatening to call the police and also threatens the stalker that she would get her boyfriend to beat him up if he doesnt stop scaring her. Throughout this whole scene the camera tracks her while she slowly backs up, the stalker responds by saying he knows who her boyrfriend is and tell her to look outside the garden. When she does she sees her boyfriend tied to a chair, she then starts to respond to the killer in order for her to save her boyfriend. She is sits in the corner shivering, we see a mid shot of this while the camera slowly zooms in on her, the effect of this shot is to make the audience feel sympathy towards her as she is in a bad situation.

The setting of this scene is clearly in suburbs in america, we see this because she lives in a spacious house, and her house is very tidy. She is also wearing pyjama like clothes, this shows us that she is a normal teenager, in an everyday life.