Scapegoat (previous AS student) Film Opening - Deconstruction of Editing and Sound

• Starts with "Sorrow Falls" followed by a date. This is on a plain back background with white writing. Using a time and date at the beginning of the film is a convention of the horror genre as it creates the "real event" feeling within the audience.
• The initial sound is non-diegetic and is muted. The wind blowing is effective because it implies that the film is going to be "found footage" which again reinforces the "real event" feeling.
• As the boys eye fades into the frame as an extreme close up shot, the non-diegetic becomes louder and a dripping sound is introduced; this is hard to listen to as it makes the audience uncomfortable and creates tension.
• Slow, long shot lengths are used and there is little editing in order to create a tense atmosphere.
• As the shot pans out, we see a dead figure on the floor in front of the boy. Quick editing then shows a 180 degree roll of the person with a black and white filter over the images; the high contrast and short shots create an enigma as it is difficult to see the characters face and we are not sure if he is definitely dead. Additionally, the audience assumes that the first boy has killed the other character though the title may suggest otherwise.
• During a continuous shot, the creators have fast forwarded sections of the clip and added a static non-diegetic at these points. By making the walking irregular and disjointed they create an illusion of lots of time passing and allows the audience to question the mental/physical states of both characters.
• The non-diegetic wind sound continues throughout though in shots where the feet are the primary focus, diegetic sound of crunching leaves can be faintly heard.
• At 1:47, a higher pitched buzzing is introduced as the boy on screen begins to twitch. This is the same editing technique used for the walking clips though it is prolonged and gives a sense of time passing. The sound makes the audience very tense and the increasing volume and tempo suggests that the climax of the opening sequence is approaching.
• The "Scapegoat" title fades in from black and uses the same minimalist style as the opening title. This is effective and repeatable as it is very simple and follows the conventions of the horror genre.
• No production credits have been created and the shots are very long, this would be good for our opening sequence as it would involve less post production graphics work however it would be hard to produce an enigmatic supernatural/possession horror without the fast editing to make the audience apprehensive