Pyscho Analysis/Inspiration

'Psycho' by Alfred Hitchcock influenced our thriller greatly as we do not want our audience to see the ‘danger’ as it’s apparent that people are always most scared of the unknown

The shower scene (above), is the one of the most iconic thriller scenes to this day, Marian Crane the female lead character, is murdered in the shower, however the audience does not actually see this act of violence, an illusion is instead created using sound and shadows. This straight away causes mystery and suspense for the audience. Not knowing what you are meant to be afraid of gives that intense feeling of fear, which is the exact feeling we want our audience to feel.
The audience sees a male shadow approaching the shower at first, but you cannot see his face which makes his identity unknown and keeps the audience guessing as to who murdered the woman until the very end of the film. The use of shadows is very effective, but we did not want to ‘copy’ the idea, we just took the inspiration and interpret it in our own way.

Also music is used effectively, throughout the whole of the film, in this scene you don't physically see the knife penetrate the skin but sound effects are used to replace this, diegetic sound such as the woman screaming and a penetrative knife noise are used, and the noise of the shower still running even after we've heard her slump to the base of the shower which informs the audience that she is now dead. This gives an impression of a brutal attack, and shows how Hitchcock cleverly manipulates his audience.

Quick cutaways and close-up shots are used in this scene too, which creates tension, and the way the shots are sequenced together makes sure that you never see a knife penetration, only the facial expression of the woman clearly shows her in pain. We decided that we wanted some quick cutaways in our opening, to create tension, as the music builds up, our cuts also get quicker. However we do not wish to take the clichéd take on a thriller, with many quicker cuts, we wish to use a mix of longer frames with quicker cuts.

Alfred Hitchcock shocks the audience even more by killing of the lead character relatively early on into the film, this adds a surprise element, and shows just how daring Hitchcock was. It was never known in a thriller for the lead to be killed off so early on in the film. By killing off the lead character it gives a big twist to the story because the audience is already interested into Marion Crane stealing forty thousand dollars only to be shocked when she’s brutally murdered. The way in which Hitchcock draws you in to feeling the characters feelings and within 10 minutes you feel you know the character and care for them
I believe this contributes to the whole film because it gives an initial fear factor and makes people watch and listen more intently to try and figure where the story is leading and who’s next to die. It also grabs people’s attention instantly and makes the film unique, which is what Hitchcock wanted.

The way in which the film is created has given us great inspiration in taking a risk, and not doing what audiences expect to happen, and taking a new direction and interpretation of the genre.