The Shining detailed analysis

The opening sequence of this film has the institution logo of Warner Brothers at the start and remains on the screen for 10 seconds. I believe the filmmaker had chosen to do this to highlight it is a mainstream film enabling a larger amount of funding put towards the film.

The genre of this opening signifies it to be a psychological horror due to the fact that there is muffled vocals produced in the middle of the opening. The camera also follows the car through rather deserted places with rather peculiar camera angles. This connote that the camera may be represented by a haunting spirit leading to the house.

The narrative of this opening at first is rather ambiguous at first as I initially thought that the car was heading to a holiday destination, but the anomalous camera angles and the sound soon changed my mind as the opening developed. Instead I believe that the storyline is about the spirits haunting them at the house shown at the very end of the opening.

The opening of ‘The Shining’ I believe portrays a super natural representation, due to the inauspicious use of diegetic music and accompanying vocals. This connotes that there may be trouble lying ahead. The car also drives through rather secluded areas until it finally reaches a dark house with the high-pitched vocals getting louder when reaching the house. This intrigues the audience as they start question what is inside.

The media language included in the opening scene has the camera following the car, with loose camera angles to help portray this. This connotes that the haunted spirits are following them through the secluded environment. This denotes something will happen involving the people inside the car. There are also muffled high-pitched vocals, which creates a rather uncomfortable atmosphere.

I think the type of audience that would watch this movie would be people aged 15 and above as most psychological horrors are aimed at this particular age. I have chosen this age due to the fact that because they are in the middle of nowhere there are no signs of help anywhere around them if ever they got into trouble creating a rather eerie atmosphere.

The titles in the opening are a light blue colour this connotes a mysterious effect and an obvious difference from the landscape scene this instantly engage the audience, as they start to question what this means. The use of the sliding transition effect on the titles could denote a spirit as it is in an unusual place. It could also be represented as the spirit following the car. All of the titles have an equal amount of time on the screen, I believe they have done this so then the audience members won’t may more attention to a certain actor as it could give the storyline away.

Studying this film opening shows how important music can be to create a really dramatic effect, without the music I believe it would be very boring. I think this because the sound effects portray a lot of the psychological effect on the audience as they question more about what is happening.