The sequence I have analysed is the first five minutes of the cult horror film Ginger Snaps.
The sequence starts with a set of establishing shots that show the film is set in a quiet suburban area known as ‘Bailey Downs’. After this we are shown one of the many backyards in the area and the woman that lives there raking up leaves showing us the film is set around autumn time. During this moment the camera pans past the woman to show her son playing in a sand pit. There is ambient sound during this as you can hear a dog barking, the wind and the local children playing. The woman then takes some of the leaves to a black bag and we are again shown her son. He looks at his finger and then proceeds to wipe it on his face. A red substance is left on his face that we instantly know must be blood. As his mother approaches him with a smile on her face a tense music starts to play made up of several stringed instruments playing a single prolonged note. This music stops when she realises that her son is playing with the severed paw of a dog. It kicks back in seconds later with just the one instrument playing the note as she approaches her dog house. When we are shown that it is her dog the music picks up as several stringed instruments once again play the same note only this time playing shorter high pitched notes. As the camera zooms in to the dog’s house we see the mangled body of the dog, the bent gate in front of the dog house and the dog’s house covered in blood and large scratches on the outside. It is during this moment that we realise that a human couldn’t have possibly done that as the scratch marks on the dog house and too large to have even come from another dog and the dog is half eaten. We are then shown a scruffy looking girl walk out of a garage carrying numerous objects such as a chainsaw and an extension cable. This gives the impression that she could have had something to do with the dead dog. During this we can hear the woman crying as we switch to the view of the girl as the woman runs out screaming and shouting that “It got our dog! It got Baxter!”. We are also shown the other residents who just look at the woman then almost immediately get back to what they were doing. It is at this point that we jump to the shot of a T.V. showing a black and white program showing the words ‘Can this happen to a normal woman?’. Although not stated this could hold significance to the narrative of the film. We then cut zoom out to an arm raising and a knife being rocked back and forth over the wrist of the arm in shallow focus drawing our attention to it. The girl from earlier then walks in and we are shown that the arm belongs to another girl and we can see that the room they are in contrasts with the ideal look of the suburban area they live in. Unlike the bright colours and pristine gardens the room is shown to be dark and the ceiling is bare as it is possible to see the support beams that would normally be covered up. We are also shown that the girls have a collection of what could be chemicals like bleach. This along with what the other girl says, ”Fuck! Wrists are for girls. I’m slitting my throat.”, suggest that the girls are either dangerous, obsessed with death or both and also implies that they could be contemplating suicide. The first girl that was introduced is then revealed to be called Bea and she makes reference to the fact that if they did commit suicide they would only be a cliché and that that they would be looked at then ignored just like the woman whose dog was killed. It is then revealed that the two girls are sisters this is revealed as they talk about a pact they made when they were eight years old that promised each other that they would die together. There is then a close up of Bea’s hand showing a set of small scars which is also shown on the other girls hand moments later suggesting that it was in fact a blood pact that they made. There is then a shot of a pristine white picket fence which pans along to a few bloodied panels with the other girl lying in the middle of them giving the impression that she is now dead however it is revealed that she is alive and that it is just a mock up for a photo shoot between the two sisters. It is at this point that we are shown the two sisters taking the rest of the photos in their shoot all of which are themed around death. During this sequence the cast list is shown through the use of subtle white titles.
Title Order
During this sequence the titles are posistioned seperately as one sequence is shown then the film title and companies involved in its making followed by another sequence leading into the sequence with the cast list over the top of it. this gives me an idea of how I should do the title sequence for my opening sequence and in what way i should do it such as the subtle white titles instead of
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