Research Into Similar Products - 1980s

Friday The 13^th – 1980
Director: Sean S Cunningham
Cover: See Right
Certificate: 18

The establishing shot of this movie shows a wood or forest of some form, with insert editing in the right hand corner telling us the date of the events happening. The whole shot is very dark and hard to make out, but we can see trees and rain falling down, which is a generic feature of most horror movies. There is some non-diagetic sound in the form of creepy music to set the audience on edge, almost warning them that something is going to happen soon.

The camera jump cuts to a shot of an old wooden sign, which the viewer can just about see ‘Camp Crystal Lake’ painted on it. This shows us that we are at some form of camp or Scout location, connoting that the area is probably quite deserted or out of the way. The camera tracks underneath the sign to give the impression of the audience entering the camp, drawing them into the action and the film itself.
Straight after this, there is a lightning flash effect, which would have been edited in afterwards, and a young woman runs onto the screen from the trees. There is diagetic sound in the form of her cries and panting of terror, which connotes that she is perhaps being chased by something or someone. The fact that she is holding her stomach implies that she has been injured somehow, and as she runs to the camera this becomes clearer as she is limping.
She keeps running towards the camera, with the camera jump cutting to further away from her. This gives the illusion that she is never going to escape, and will always be running towards her goal. The final jump cut of this sequence takes us to an extreme-long shot of the girl in one corner of the screen, surrounded by muddy landscape, and rain. There are patches of grass and mud around her, implying that it rains often there, and the emptiness of the shot denotes that so far, she is completely alone.

A short match-on-action sequence of the girl running ends with a close-up two shot, where she is grabbed by what we assume to be her attacker. The two shot is also very dark, omitting most of the facial features, keeping the audience in mystery as to who is running or attacking.
The camera jump cuts to a shot of the girl’s back, where the word “counsellor” can be seen clearly on her soaked white shirt. The fact that the shirt is white and going slowly transparent under the rain gives the impression of playing to the male gaze, with the fact that the woman is both pretty and younger. An extreme-long shot then shows us both characters and their proxemics, which are so far apart that they are on opposite sides of the screen.
A new sound is added in with the music of speech, delivered in a generic high-pitched, spooky voice.
The camera jump cuts to a close-up of a character hiding amongst the trees, showing the audience that the girl is not alone in her plight, as she has an observer.

The 2-minute clip ends with a small conversation between the chaser and the chased, using shot/reverse shot but at a long shot, to show the whole character. This technique with a long shot is uncommon, but allows us to see the dynamics of the character.