10 minute film analysis- Stigmata

In the first part of the title sequence where its introducing the film company etc it starts with the sun rising like a normal day but when the shot changes all the lighting is slightly orange but not bright as would be expected with the sunshine so this immediately triggers something isn’t quite right. The writing for the title sequence is strange and looks like foreign writing or symbols then change to English, the writing flickers up and down and moves about the scene to make it seem like its been possessed by something.
The music during the opening sounds like a ghost and it makes it sound very sinister and creepy, this give an insight into what the film is going to be like. After the first scene when the introduction of the characters starts in the second part of the title sequence, the mood of the film changes and so does the music. It changes from a spooky ghostlike noise to a heavy rock club song with a much more happy feeling to it which contrasts with the previous music.
When the first scene opens it starts with lots of close ups of a man writing strange writing on a piece of old looking paper. There are lots of close ups alternating between the paper, the man’s mysterious face and the rosary beads he is holding. The rosary beads give the initial religious connection and the viewer is forced to focus on that, also the viewer are forced to realise that the man must be very important by showing a lot of close ups of him and immediately wonder what it is that must be so important for him to be the only character in the first part of the film.
The two people i would consider to be the main focus in the first 10 minutes of this film are the man who is shown from the very beginning and the man who is walking through the crowd with the sunglasses on. These are both male characters which backs up that males are stereotypically the more dominant gender and that stereotypically years back females were not seen as important. This is shown in that all the females to begin with are shown all doing the same thing bowing which infers that they are not individuals and that they are respecting something more superior to themselves.
The main dominant man is well identified as he has a completely contrasting costume to the rest of the people in the background. Everyone else in the crowd are wearing robes that are mainly white and red but the main man is wearing a black jacket with black sunglasses so the audience are immediately attracted to him but for what reason they don’t know yet. The town in which the film is set to begin with is very crowded and all the people in the background seem to be slightly out of focus and in slow motion, however the camera is following the main man at all times and his colour isn’t faded, it’s bright which makes him stand out even more.
There are a few eyeline matches between the main man and what he is looking at for example when he looks at the candles and they go out. By doing this it allows the audience to be put in his position and by doing so makes the audience feel they can relate to this character by seeing what he sees.
There is a very high angle shot of the statue with blood pouring down it and they audience are automatically drawn to this because it is the first high angle shot in the film which means the statue being showed in it must be very important. By showing it in such a high angle it means that it must be very superior and must have an important role within the film. When the statue is shown it shows a long shot of the crowd in the church doing the cross on their chest which backs up that it is a respected figure.
There is a low angle shot of a woman carrying a cross which must imply that the woman isn’t very important and that she is looked down upon which is stereotypical for women to be looked down upon by men and also other important figures of authority because men are more important. Its a contrast showing the cross in a low angle shot because that would infer that t was looked down upon and not important, however that’s the opposite image they are trying to create. They are trying to convey the importance of religion throughout buy having close up and medium shots of the cross and other religious symbols. There are also low angle shots of most other people apart from the cross and the main actor in the film meaning that they are the superior characters. There are also close ups of everything the man does for example when he takes swabs of the blood from the statue, this is intentional to make the audience watch what he is doing and realise it must have some significance.
After the scene in the church when the second lot of titles start the setting completely changes to a club where the lighting is no longer grey and instead is very bright which would infer it has turned into a normal day again however all the way through there are religious symbols flashing up all the way through and the pieces of paper with strange writing on shown in the same yellow tint and darkness as before to convey that it isn’t a normal day after all.
This film relates to the same genre as ours because there are specific conventions throughout that make me know it is a horror film. There is blood, screaming, churches and darkness.
In our film we used a few things that were similar, for example we chose to make the writing in our title sequence jump and move about to create the idea that everything is not right. We also used the idea of having some old looking paper with symbols on it, we thought this looked good as people wouldn’t know what the symbols were straight away and therefore leave the audience in suspense. Another thing we did similar was after having the horror scene to start with which had the blood in it it then went on to be a normal day just like in the Stigmata film but another thing we did which was similar is to keep the symbols in it to give the idea everything isn’t really normal just like stigmata did with the religious images.