EXAMINE THE OPENING SCENES OF BOTH SLEEPY HOLLOW AND THE TRUMAN SHOW. DISCUSS THE TECHNIQUES USED BY BOTH DIRECTORS.

Gemma Binns

Mr M Smith

Media Assignment

January 2003

EXAMINE THE OPENING SCENES OF BOTH SLEEPY HOLLOW AND THE TRUMAN SHOW. DISCUSS THE TECHNIQUES USED BY BOTH DIRECTORS.

In this essay I shall be concentrating upon the role of the director, looking at the films Sleepy Hollow and The Truman Show. The director has enormous power and authority for everything that happens on the film set.

The two directors of Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton) and The Truman Show (Peter Weir) both set out to make different kind of films. Tim Burton set out to make a gothic horror film whereas Peter Weir set out to make a serious comedy.

When the opening credits of Sleepy Hollow began the audience know what genre the film was by the mood and atmosphere. The colours black, grey and white along with the mist and fog creates a spooky atmosphere and the audience associates this with the unknown. The heavy tones of the orchestra fades into one single voice, which emits a ghost like chant.

The opening shot is a close up shot, which appears to be blood. The colours change from black to red and this creates the setting for the horrors that are about to unfold. The following scene is a close up shot of a hand moving towards another hand. The third scene is a close up shot of the last will and testament. Although these scenes were all close up shots the audience still got information about the time setting. For instance the quill and the ink stand. The camera then goes to another close up scene of the wax just about to be sealed, and then the wax is sealed with a stamp. The camera then zooms in to reveal the name Van Garret.

The audience is made to feel claustrophobic by the way the camera is used. The music becomes very fast and loud which has changed the mood, and is used to reflect the running horses and coach. Then a mid shot appears of the horse and carriage moving down the foggy lane.

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The director is using many images to do with the horror genre as he as used special effects to do this. A scarecrow appears in the middle of a long tracking shot, which proves to be what Van Garret can see from the coach. The directors use the camera to show the scene from the actor’s perspective. The audience becomes closer to the film as it is what the actor can see.

The evil spirits cannot be seen but can be heard, the director does not want you to know who or what these sounds are coming from, as he wants to keep the audience guessing. A flash goes past the coach window, which appears to be a blur. Then the audience hears a horseman riding by. A sound effect of a sword is used then the audience sees the decapitated coach driver.

Van Garret leaps out of the coach and then we see the horse and coach move down the lane and exit the scene. A tracking shot is shown of Van Garret running through a cornfield. We can also see what the actor can see with a hand-held camera looking left and right. The music is slow and quiet but creepy. Silence, the music stops and the scarecrow appears and all you can see is the scarecrows head. You can hear a sword being pulled out and Van Garret has been decapitated.

Peter Weir is the director of the film The Truman Show and he set out to make an intelligent and thought provoking film. The film is a serious comedy and so the film is unique and very original. Enormous care has been taken with each shot and scene to make it look as though Truman’s life is a reality TV show. Truman’s life has always been filmed; the director adopted him at birth and has filmed him since then.

At the beginning of the Truman starts talking to the bathroom cabinet we get to hear his most inner thoughts as he doesn’t know that he his been filmed all the time. There is a close up shot of Truman leaving his house and talking to the neighbours across the road. Here we get to see how the director has used Truman’s next-door neighbour to hold a bin with a camera inside it.

The director purposely made two mistakes the first one was that rain machine were supposed to follow Truman everywhere. Peter Weir made this scene go wrong so that the acting director would have to improvise. He turned on all of the rain showers so that Truman wouldn’t know that anything was wrong. The second mistake that happened was that one of the main street lamps fell down so the radio men had to quickly run on to the scene to fix the light.

The director has placed the cameras in unusual places; they are camouflaged in bins, flowerbeds. These kinds of cameras are used so that Truman can not see them. When Truman is in his car listening to the radio the radio station switches to the director talking to the actors (this is a fault in the radio). The director is saying to the actors what street Truman is on, where he his turning off and anything else Truman is doing. When the director regains control of the radio there is a high pitched noise and then there is a crane shot of all the actors putting their hand to their ear. The director repeatedly shouts action to the actor so Truman doesn’t get suspisus.

Sometimes the director loses control of what is suppose to happen in Truman’s life. As in one case Truman is suppose to fall in love with Beryl who is one of the main actors. Instead Truman falls in love with Lauren who is one of the extras. This causes great difficulty for the director so he has to think very quickly in what is going to happen next. So the director sends in Lauren’s Dad to take her away.

In my opinion Sleepy Hollow and The Truman Show were both very interesting films, although they were very different films. Sleepy Hollow had the most special effects, as there was more lightening and thunder to show the atmosphere. Whereas, The Truman Show has mood and atmosphere but doesn’t use special effects to reflect the mood. The cameras are used well in both films because they help to show atmosphere. Peter Weir took a greater risk than Tim Burton to do well at the box office. Both directors used storyboards to work out the sequence of scenes.