DW "Scream" (Craven, 1996)

Genre
- The sub-genre of this film is Slasher. This is made clear by the stock characters and stock scenes, like a young, female protagonist, an older male antagonist, with a hidden identity and connotations of violence.

Form and Style
- A sense of foreboding is created though sound, mise-en-scene and camera work.
- Character exposition is created through narrative.
- There are no titles of actors, directors or producers in the opening sequence, only the main title of the film which displays at the start.
- At first, the title stretches in from the top and bottom to the centre of the screen, and is in a white, edgy font. This connotes a ghostly feel to the film, and something paranormal. The title then flashes to red, which is a stereotypical way of connoting violence and death in the film. Title of the film itself "Scream" has lots of cultural baggage to do with pain and violence, but also scare factor, making it a great name for a slasher horror film.

Film Language
- Mise-en-scene
- Location is used extensively to convey meaning in the extract, as we see the protagonist situated alone in a house that is isolated from any other houses. This is very stereotypical of horror films as the victim is alone and vulnerable to attack without being noticed missing for a while.
- The use of dark, low key lighting outside the house is also used to convey meaning, which connotes doom and sense of mystery.
- Camera
- In the opening sequence, the camera hardly ever cuts to another shot, but instead pans and tracks with the protagonist as she's walking around the house. This is done to drag out the shots and make it feel really long and realistic, as it feels as if we are walking with the girl most the time, creating realism.
- Sound
- Diegetic sound is used to anchor the images, like the protagonist talking on the phone. This is done to create realism and show insight and character exposition.
- Non-diegetic sound is used throughout a lot of the clip to create tension. This is done by the use of high pitched sustained strings to create the creepy atmosphere. Drums are also used to connote a war scene, which further builds suspense that a killer might be lurking round the corner.

Narrative 
- The order of narrative: protagonist is introduced, protagonist introduced to antagonist over phone, protagonist and antagonist developed, antagonist threatens protagonist.
- Major themes presented: good vs evil, human vs unknown.
- We are made to identify with the female protagonist, because she is given reaction shots and prevalence over the antagonist.
- We are made to be alienated against the male antagonist because he does not appear once in the sequence, we only hear his voice.  

Representation & Ideologies
- The protagonist in the sequence is a young woman, and she is represented as vulnerable as she is being tormented over the phone by an illusive antagonist who says he can see her. This is a dominant ideological discourse for horror films, for both age and gender, as young women are often portrayed as weak and volatile.
- The antagonist in the sequence is a male, who's full identity is hidden from the audience. Because of this, he is represented as a mysterious and creepy character, and also quite dangerous as it is stereotypical to hide the killer from the audience in slasher films, and he is shown to be able to go undetected from the protagonist. This is dominant ideological discourse of the antagonist in slasher films.

Media Audiences
- The target audience of "Scream" is ordinary teenagers and young people, so was designed to appeal to a mass audience.
- A preferred reading of the text is that the antagonist is a clever and mysterious, who is going to seek a motivated attack on the protagonist.
- A negotiated reading of the text is that the antagonist has bad intentions, yet may be useless in his attempts, and is overcome by the protagonist later in the film.

One idea we could take from "Scream", is not revealing the antagonist at all, and leaving him open to the audiences perception. We could also experiment with really a really slow cutting rate is we decide to go for this style, as it is very effective at building tension.