'It Follows'

Analysis of 'It Follows' : Opening scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2d4_TgwZQc

This movie starts with a cold open of  an establishing shot which shows a suburban area which seems calm. There is ambient music playing in the background which makes the audience believe there is nothing bad going on. It then pans to the front of an expensive looking house, you then see a female character run out of the house she appears to be frightened and is breathing heavily. She then becomes the main focus for this shot as she appears to seem out of place in a calm surrounding. This puts the audience on edge as you can not see what she is frightened of and that her surroundings seem calm so her actions contradict it. This is something i would like to include in my opening as I think it is a technique which can engage an audience well and produce enigma codes for the rest of the opening. The scene appears to take place early in the morning as there isn't much light in the surrounding area.

It goes to an over the shoulder shot of the female driving in her car she seems to be speeding franticly like she is trying to run away from something. This creates a sense of confusion as everything so far with the surroundings has shown that it is fine but her actions suggests that there is danger. It cuts to a shot of her at the beach, there is minimal lighting in this shot which has been chosen as it helps build suspense, the only light used is from the car headlights. The female character is shown to be one the phone to a family member telling them that she 'loves them' this can be seen as an unusual thing to do in the circumstance she is in, this might put the audience on edge even more as they are still left not knowing what is going to happen. As she is one the phone the shot changes to a mid shot of her car with a sound of thudding footsteps over the top. This adds to the tension as you can not see what is causing the sound to happen. On a thud the shot changes again to a mid shot of the female characters lifeless face it suggests that the thing which caused the thudding footsteps also caused her death.

 The shot then changes to a long shot in which you can see the females mangled body with the ocean behind her. Its a strange shot as the beach looks very pretty and serine but the female looks gory and  horrid these two things contradict each other which might enhance the brutality of her death as it seems to be a place where happy memories occur.