Jaws Film Analysis

Jaws:

What genre indicators are there?

You are able to work out that the film is going to be a horror by the music that is used straight away at the beginning. The music that is used makes the audience on edge and will make them think that something bad is going to happen. This automatically lets the audience know that the film will be a horror.

 

What questions are the audience encouraged to ask themselves about the character/ narrative?

The audience are encouraged to ask themselves what is going to happen to teenagers on the beach and why they were focusing a lot of the opening scene under water. This makes the audience question whether it is to do with some form of underwater monster or animal. In the opening scene there is a girl and a boy who were flirting and they ran off to the sea front together, this makes the audience question whether they will be main characters in the film.

 

What do we find out?

From the opening scene we find out that something is going to happen in the sea because at the beginning of the clip its filmed underwater with tense music playing in the background. You are also able to work out that something is going to happen to the teenagers who are all sat right next to the sea.

 

How is music or ambient sound used and what mood is created?

At the very beginning of the opening scene they have used dramatic, fast paced music which causes tension and automatically makes the audience think that something bad is going to soon happen. The music then very quickly changes as the scene changes to a man playing the harmonica with a bunch of teenagers at a party which automatically indicates something bad will happen to them.

What camera shots stand out for you and what is their effect of appeal?

At the beginning of the opening scene when all of the teenagers are gathered round the beach they use an extreme wide shot so that the audience could see the whole beach, the camera slowly zooms out so the sea is the last thing the audience will be able to spot which also indicates something bad will happen in the sea. They also use a medium shot of the girl who was getting into difficulty in the sea and who was drowning, this was a good shot to use because the audience were able to see the struggle she was in. They use a wide shot of the beach and the passed out teenager laying on the sand where he had consumed too much alcohol, this was a way to show the audience where the boy was when the drowning girl needed saving.