Film Analysis Part 1

In the opening to The Ring (2002) you can tell that the film takes place in a modern time period, with two girls sitting in a bedroom watching TV. If you could not tell from the looks of the actresses alone, their clothing suggests that they are high-school aged, with skirts and button ups that resemble a uniform or dress code. One of the girls looks more comfortable, lying on the bed with her socks and blazer off, suggesting that this is her house, while the girl sitting on the floor is her friend. The lighting is dim, coming from the lamp on the nightstand and from one behind the camera. It is bright enough for everything on screen to be fully visible, but dark enough to make the atmosphere slightly eerie, with the green hues also contributing to this feeling. The overall color palette of the scene is dull, with the props, costuming, and decor all being black, white, grey, or beige, which makes the mood feel cold and mundane. The room feels tight and enclosed, with the characters looking boxed in the frame. The attention here is entirely on them, their expressions, and their dialogue. Initially, with their lack of movement, eye contact, and emotion in both their faces and their voices, it is clear that they are bored. It makes sense then, why the girl with the black hair brings up a spooky story, to get some sort of shock or excitement out of her friend. After she mentions this, they start to have more variance in their tone and expressions, while also moving closer to each other. The camera moves closer to the girls as well, only showing the face of whoever is talking, making the audience feel like they are a part of the conversation, which just got a lot more interesting. It also dollies in on them as their stories get more unsettling. The girl with the black hair is smiling, trying to get a reaction out of her friend, who appears more serious in contrast. This dynamic between them continues as well as the close-ups and dollies throughout most of the opening, up until the point that the black-haired girl becomes visibly nervous, and the blonde one starts to gag. Ambient noise begins to play, which is notable because the only sound before this in the scene only came from their dialogue. The camera position changes back to a mid-shot of the both of them on the bed, and the clip ends with the black-haired girl realizing the blonde was messing with her. The mood of the scene still feels off even with this reveal, and the viewer may assume that this is a part of a build up to something real happening. 

Despite being the same genre of our film, the opening from The Ring (2002) is significantly different. Dialogue and interaction are the focus of this scene, the main purpose of it being to explain to the audience the premise of the film (watch tape=scary girl crawls out of well and kills you). In contrast, our film opening has no dialogue, and the only words that are spoken in it comes from a voicemail and the main character saying "Hello?" while searching for the source of the noise she heard. Our opening is also more varied in terms of setting, going from the cemetery to the house, and even then, the main character never feels restricted to a single room for very long. It is faster-paced, and more events take place in the first two minutes. The opening of The Ring is slower paced, with less of an emphasis on action and more on the exchange between the characters and their expressions, using mainly close-up shots (I believe our opening only has one). It only takes place in the blonde girl's bedroom, and the positioning of the camera closer to the ground/at level with the characters makes the room feel smaller, so the characters feel a lot more confined.