Textual Analysis of Mad House

_Textual analysis of Madhouse_

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Here is a film called Madhouse, it has many elements in it that will be
similar to our main task. So we may be using some ideas very close to the ones used in this film. The embedding was disabled for the video but
here is the HTML: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUYcRIC1cYc

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The first shot shows a common phrase used in most family films but it
has been deranged and twisted to off put the audience. The deranged way
in which the film opens shows that it is more likely a horror film than
a family film. The sound used in this first shot is of a young girl
laughing in an evil manor. This is off putting to the audience as
laughing is usually a sign of happiness and joy but the images are quite
different from this common thought. This first shot pans to a long
corridor that looks like it would be in a mental institution. This
relates to the film’s title. It then does a very quick cut to a child in
a washing machine; this is then cut instantly back to the corridor where
the camera continues to walk down it. Lightning then flashes which means
the camera can cut to a woman stood in the corridor looking quite
confused and dazed. This breaks continuity and affects the audience’s
viewings. It then carries on to do more cuts of weird items like babies
being hung with blood out their mouths. This is generally quite a
disturbing and shows the general idea of the film. The sounds through
out the whole intro is a high pitched music that is chilling. This intro
sequences carries on to cuts of people’s faces that are slightly
deformed but not in a natural way, this shows that something in the
house is causing this. The lighting used in this intro is constantly
breaking continuity which does put the user in an uneasy place. At 0:45
the intro shows a body being cut up, this may answer the questions
raised in the audience of how the people in the house had become
deformed. At 1:00 minute a man tries to escape the house and is followed
by people in white suits, this shows that people are not allowed to
escape and gives a feeling of claustrophobia to the audience.

Shot Reverse Shot

This is a good example of a shot reverse shot.



Notice how the 180 degree axis is set in the establishing shot. The shot-reverse shot alternates between Lily and the office boy talking, . This scene uses the main concept of continuity editing, which is the 180 degree rule. The 180 degree rule is where the camera must stay on only one side of the actions and objects in the scene. An invisible line, known as the 180 degree line or 'axis of action' runs through the space of the scene.


A long shot of the characters in conversation, followed by a medium shot. Any shot focusing on two people is referred to as a two shot. As the scene progresses to moments of emotional or dramatic intensity, the camera typically presents closer shots of the individual characters -- Medium close ups and close-ups. These shots usually alternate between the two speakers, with the camera placed at more or less opposite ends of the axis of action between them. This pattern of alternating shots is called the shot reverse shot structure.

The diegetic sound in this clip (the characters speaking to each other) shows continuity as it shows one character speaking then focuses on the next characters reaction towards the end of their speech. As this is a relatively old clip of Shot reverse shot there aren't any ambient sounds in the background.

From this clip i have been able to easily identify elements of the shot reverse shot that my group could use in our preliminary task and how we are able to do it.

Members of my group and their strengths

Member Strengths

Tim Eldridge Creative and artistic, musical skills
Chloe Hill Photography skills, organised with work.
Tom Sanderson Strong musical ideas and skills
Curtis Sinden Strong ideas for filming

Research- Different Camera Shot Angles

Different camera shots i will be using when filming. Not all of them but a fair amount. Although im not going to use zoom, as its bad! ;). Also when framing i have to leave enough head space because its crucial! ;)

Preliminary Task

today we got the brief for our preliminary task. The task should involve filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character.

A good example of this is the following clip. From the film 'Heat'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYSzx_zy-98