what lies beneath analysis

Our homework for the Christmas holiday was to choose one thriller clip and analyse how suspense is created within the clip. The clip I have chosen to analyse is ‘What lies beneath’ because it used different techniques to demonstrate how camera movement, sound, editing etc. to build up tension within the clip/scene. Firstly the camera is on the main character of this scene, there’s a long shot to show us her movement and where she is , her facial expression is uneasy which indicates something is happening out of the ordinary, as soon as she stops on the stairs because she noticed something, the camera moves across in the same direction she’s looking at (panning shot) and that’s where the tension levels go high, the audience do not know where the camera I going and what it’s going to show and we know its something negative. The lighting is dark showing its night time which definitely makes the house creepy and scary, its gives us a clue on what’s going to happen next. There are low angle shots over the shoulder shot , close-up, and also point of view which is the most effect, it makes the audience feel what the character is feeling, uneasiness, tension, fear, curiosity etc. and we see what she see’s which makes it more interesting with all the steam in the bathroom which makes the character seem weak because she can’t clearly see anything especially where we know something bad is going to happen and were unsure of the outcome. Throughout out the whole clip there’s slow scary music (non-diagetic) and it gets louder and louder as she gets nearer to the door, there’s a track in towards the bath and we know each step she takes is a step nearer to the danger we think she’s going to face. When she gets to the bath the audience expected something to happen and nothing did we carry on looking at the bath and there’s water filled up in the bath and it seems that’s she didn’t fill it up and makes it very unusual which gives us another hint of something bad happening with the water so we look carefully at the bath and the water looking at the characters reflection then we see another persons reflection appear and the music goes loud and quick which plays a part in the tension created, if there was no music we wouldn’t be as scared . Then obviously she screams and her husband comes running to her rescue, the music changes all dramatically then there’s a close up of the water going down the drain showing that it is not the end and more is going to happen so the suspense isn’t gone it’s just low and it can go high at any moment which is what we expect after seeing that.