SlasherEG1: Psycho

Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

Psycho is a black and white film. This was quite strange as in 1960 the majority of films were then in colour. They chose to put it in black and white as it wouldn't have been allowed in cinemas in colour as the blood would have shown re and been classed too graphic for audiences.

One of the most contraversial elements of the film was when a toilet was showed being flushed. This had never been shown in a film before and a lot of people classed it as innapropriate.
All the titles are shown in black and white, and the directors titles are shown as the directers name before the film name. The titles are in a sans serif font and the letters are animated in a way that suggests something along the idea of split personality. The main actors are shown on there own on the screen highlighting the most important character with the character name. The more general titles are shown as.. 'screenplay by...'
'music by...'

The titles end at 1.50

The first shot of the film there is non diegetic music and an audio bridge connecting the credits to the opening sequence. They provide exposition of the date time and place on the screen separately over the opening shots. The first shot is an extreme long shot which is also an establishing shot, it is of a city setting and is a birds eye view. This shot slowely pans across the city. There is then a dissolve transition used to move into the next shot. The panning continues and this pan and cross dissolve sequence happens 3 times.

The next shot to be shown is a zoom on on a random window in the city. This represents the hand of fate and the fact that this horror that is about to take place could have happened to anybody in the city and they were randomly chosen, making the audience more scared becasue it could possibly happen to them. The zoom then continues through the window like the audience are spying on the people in there. This is a very similar idea to Peeping tom, also released in 1960.

There is a panning shot across the room and then a long shot, slightly high angled of a girl very much centred in the frame. It is clear that this is who the audience should be concentrating on. The Guy is only in the edge of the shot which signifies he is less relevant. The girl shown here is the scream queen (marianne) and she is a real archetype of a scream queen that a lot of scream films from other films are based or related too.

By the end of these first inital shots it is 2.53 into the film.