Scream (1996)

This scene starts with a close up on the telephone which suggests that this is going to play a key part in the scene. From this close up we follow the phone up to the person who answers it, this therefore introduces the audience to the main character, at this point we don't think anything of the person on the phone. There is then a mid shot of the lady walking away from the phone, this shows her facial expressions which just appear normal. Then as the phone rings again her face appears confused as if this situation was to happen normally you would not expect a phone call straight after. We then become more wary of the man on the end of the phone and assume he also plays a key role. When the lady is still talking to the man the camera turns enabling us as an audience to look through the patio doors at this point we are searching for something suspicious and abnormal, while the main character is unaware of this all. An establishing shot is then used to highlight the fact that this is set in a rural location with no neighbours around or any other people. There is another mid shot used again and this time we can see that the lady is starting to become more annoyed with the male calling. whereas he is using it as a chance to flirt. We follow the lady again as she walks around her house and once again we are looking and waiting in apprehension. The conversation then becomes more flirty on each side of the phone call, the atmosphere becomes more chilled and we know this is when something will happen. We then have a close up on the ladies face to emphasis the change in her facial expression, from happy and friendly to straight faced and nervous about what is going to happen next. There is then a close up on her locking the door to illustrate how she is now feeling scared. When the phone rings again the tone of the man changes and becomes much more aggressive, this causes the lady to become much more panicked, this is emphasised by her wiping a tear away from her cheek. The close up illustrates how panicked she is now getting from this stranger shouting down the phone at her. By her looking sideways but the camera not following her it allows the audience to feel the same sort of fear that she must be feeling, fear of unknown. This tone has now changed again and the man is treating this as some sort of joke, this increases the fear. The camera follows her into a corner and then as she runs around her house, locking all the doors again. As he is treating it all as a joke it makes the audience fear him more because he is acting abnormally. There is no music at this point and all we can hear is her crying, when the door bell rings it comes as a shock to both her and the audience. We are zooming into the lady crying and although she is the focus of the shot the audience are looking all around her to try and find clues as to what is happening. While we are doing this the camera flips so we see from her point of view walking away from the door, this allows the audience to think they are moving away from the man. Close ups are the most common shots used throughout this to portray how she is feeling to the audience through the use of facial expressions and body language.