DC: Technical Analysis- Nightmare on Elms Street (Craven, 1984)

-Continuity editing

Shot thumbnail	Technical Info
0-17 seconds	-Shot starts as a close up on Glen’s face, before slowly panning away from his face, revealing his bedroom. -The teenager’s bedroom is a familiar location to the target audience of 15-35 year old males. -Glen’s costume is casual, teenage clothes, depicting him as a normal teenage boy -Background soundtrack with slight crescendo contributes to tension of shot, connotes a ‘calm before the storm’
17-28 seconds	-This shot involves a mid shot of Glen still lying in bed, as the antagonist (Freddy Kreuger) grabs him and pulls him down through the bed. -The shot involves no movement, staying at the same angle throughout the duration of the shot as Glen is pulled into the bed. -Non-Diegetic high pitch ‘squealing’ soundtrack is conventional of the Horror genre, for example the similar soundtrack in ‘Psycho’ (Hitchcock 1960)
28-32 seconds	-Shot shows a girl reacting to watching Glen’s murder. -Diegetic sound of her scream contributes to the tension of the shot and anchors the events seen in the previous shot. - The short stop in the non-diegetic soundtrack in the previous shot connotes the action is over. -Girl also in casual clothing
32-35 seconds	-Scene shows Glen’s blood being shot back through the hole in the bed that he was pulled through -Sudden return of ‘squealing’ non-diegetic soundtrack anchors the return of the action -Fake blood conventional of Slasher genre and introduces gore to the scene - Mid shot used to show focus of the scene (hole and blood) and enough of the rest of the setting to establish the location as Glen’s bedroom
35-39 seconds	-Similar to previous shot, depicting same events (blood coming back out of the hole in Glen’s bed) -High angle shot is used so that the audience can see the blood hitting the ceiling, making the events in the shot even more grotesque and contributing to the gore factor in the shot
39-45 seconds	-This shot involves a ped shot, tracking the blood from the bed all the way to the ceiling. This anchors the blood hitting the celing in the last scene
47-50 seconds	-Mid close up of Glen’s mother entering the bedroom - Mid close up allows the audience to see her shocked facial expression and see some of the scene around her (Glen’s door) -diegetic sound of her scream anchors her shocked facial expression
50-54 seconds	-Shot shows the blood coming from the hole beginning to slow down as less comes out - reverse ped-shot as the camera pans from the ceiling of the bedroom to the floor -non-diegetic sound of the mothers screaming still prevalent
54-56 seconds	-mid close up of the mothers screaming as she becomes more panicked -drastically decreased length of shot shows the increased cutting rate in the latter stages of this scene -body language denotes mothers fear and panic
1.01-  1.03 minutes	-These 3 shots all show Glen floating out of the hole in the bed, before being thrown to the ground - The shots are pieced together with a very high cutting rate, making this section of the scene a good example of continuity editing and anchoring the tense, frightening events in the shots -Glen’s lifeless body language connotes the fact that he has already been killed by the antagonist -Mothers non-diegetic screaming also contributes to the continuous aspect of these shots as it shows she is still standing at the doorway in the previous shot
1.03-1.05 minutes	-The final shot in the scene cuts back to the mother standing in the doorway, showing her running off camera, while screaming -The shot uses the same framing as the other shots of the mother, contributing to the continuous nature of the scene -The mothers body language, for example, placing her hands over her ears, shows her great distress and fear, also anchoring the fact that she has reached ‘breaking point’ and cannot watch any longer