When the police drive past Marion's car, a long shot is used. This is mainly used to show the location and to say how isolated it is, where there isn't much around her. It makes the audience think that Marion has got away with not getting caught by the police. The police then reverses and parks behind her. This is also why a log shot is used; to tell that the policeman reverses.
Two types of camera shots are used when the policeman is talking to Marion. These shots are big close-up for the policeman and low-angle shot for Marion. These shots create suspense as the big close-up shot of the policeman, as it shows us his facial expressions. As he wears sunglasses you never see his face fully. This dehumanizes him a bit. The closeness makes us focus into his facial expressions more. The low-angle shot which is focused on Marion is used, as it tells us that she is less powerful than the policemen. She can't do much. It shows that she is lower than the policeman.
When Marion arrives at the motel, something which immediately tells the audience that it's unusual is the fact that the motel is isolated. There is silence and it is dark. This adds to the spookiness. There is no-one staying at the motel at the time. It is life-less. This creates suspense as we know that something might be wrong with the motel. The gothic image of the house on the hill is positioned above the motel. This tells us that the house can see everything; it is omniscient, big and a very mysterious figure. The house and the motel make the viewers feel very scared as they don't know what will happen next.
The other thing what happens when Marion enters the motel is that the music quickly fades out. The only thing the audience can hear is the rain and the wipers of the car. This slight silence creates suspense because you don't know what is going to happen next. It shows there is little around her and that she is isolated.
The point of view shot of the obscured view of the road is disturbed by the rain on the windscreen of the car. This creates a sense of the unknown, of being lost and consequently of suspense, and the lights of the other cars coming in the opposite direction are disturbing her.
In the office, when Marion is signing for a room, Norman Bates makes the audience immediately suspicious of him. This is clearly seen when he goes to reach for the keys he was about to pick the key to room three, but then he changes his mind and gives the key to room one, instead. This immediately makes the audience feel suspicious of him. He hesitates on deciding what room to put her in.
Noram's hobby in his spare time is taxidermy. The type of bird he stuffs is preys. The significant of showing that he stuffs these birds is to show that he maybe also preys on other things too. He also preys on weaker things than him. It shows he is fond of them and he maybe acts like them too. Norman refers to 'we' when he is talking. This implies that there is someone else in the house with him. Of course the audience doesn't know that, so they want to find out and so they wait in anticipation. This builds up a story for the shower scene. People then start to look back at the evidence to see if they can build up who the killer might be.
His conversations include references to death and entrapment. This can be clearly seen as he says to Marion "you eat like a bird". He says this when there are dead birds around on the wall in the room she is eating in. This has an effect on the viewer as they get more suspicious of Norman at this point.
Norman is not completely sane in the office as he knows exactly what a mental institute is like. This creates suspense because we don't know what he is exactly capable of doing. His mood changes very quickly, as well as his emotions and the tone of his voice. We know that he is isolated. He stares into space, he is blank minded.
The shower scene in the film is one of the central part of the movie. For this scene Hitchcock used many camera angles. There were 78 separate camera set-ups needed. It took altogether 7 days to film, this scene. However there were many technical problems. This included the filming heads on shot of the water, filming the 'mother' from inside the shower, and the effect of the quick slash of the knife.
The scene starts as Marion walks into the shower and she is having a shower. She looks relaxed and calm. It doesn't seem that anything is going to happen, but there is always a suspicion, as the audience is quite suspicious of Norman. While Marion is having a shower, a shadow is seen by the audience, approaching her. The body of the killer is obscured, at all times. The viewer can only see the outline of the intruder and nothing more. There is dramatic irony at this part, as we see the killer but Marion doesn't see him approaching. The viewers at this point are nervous, as they know that Marion will die, but they are worried because Marion doesn't know that the killer is there. We then see the killer blurred behind the shower curtain. Marion is then killed, with a knife. You can see the slashes of the knife. The killer then disappears and Marion is left dieing. She eventually dies a painful death. The audience would be very shocked; this would be because now they want to find out who this 'Psycho' is. When the killer is approaching Marion the music changes as it gets faster and has more sudden beats. It has descending and ascending beats.
When Marion's blood runs into the plughole, the camera zooms to a close up of the plug hole and then the shot is slowly merged into a big close-up of Marion's eye. The significant of this sequence is that the blood is representing the life of Marion. It is showing her life go down the plughole. Her life is slowly running away. It then zooms out and a big close-up of Marion's eye is shown. The pupil of the eye is very small, round and scary. It shows that she is dead now. "Eyes are windows of the soul", this means that the eye gives most away of the characteristics of the person. You know just by looking at the eye that she is dead. You can jus tell. Marion also 'reaches out' to grab something when she is dying. This is showing that she might want to ease the pain; this sometimes works as when you grab something you feel that you are more relived. She might also be holding on the shower curtain to represent that she is holding on to her life. She doesn't want to let go, but she has to as she is dying.
The view in which we see the killer is obscured. We don't actually ever see the killer clearly when he is killing Marion. The views are always blurred. Hen the intruder is approaching Marion the audience see him, but she actually doesn't. This makes the audience feel, that they want to help Marion by telling her that the killer is behind her.
The camera angles are very quick and there are lots of 'cuts'. These many cuts represent the fact she is getting slashed. Each cut is showing us one slash of the knife, hitting Marion. This I think has an affect on the viewers as they can see the knife going in from many different angles. This creates tension and anticipation as they want to know who the killer is now.
During parts of the play, some dramatic irony is shown. Dramatic irony is when the audience watching knows more about the events than the characters involved know. This dramatic irony is shown when Marion and Norman are in the office. Norman says "We all have our private traps, and we can never get out". This is dramatic irony as when he says this we know that Marion is in a trap, as she is going to die. But the character Marion doesn't know that she has fallen in a trap. We only notice dramatic irony if we see the film twice, as we know to look out for clues along the way to help us build a story, of what really is going on. We can then see what her characters can't. Dramatic irony creates suspense as we might know important things which other characters don't know. This makes the audience wanting to help the person who is in danger.
The music throughout the film reflected the viewers feeling. This was the first time that this sort of technique was used. The pace of the music is fast when Marion is escaping with the money, but in the stabbing the music is descending and ascending. All these effects make the viewers very scared and afraid, especially at that time. There is minimal, if any, background noise when she enters the grounds of the motel. The music quickly fades out, living silence. The effect this has is that people wait in anticipation for what will happen next.
The camera angles which are used throughout the film were used to manipulate the viewer in unnerving them and creating tension. The long shots of the house and then the medium shots of Norman Bates, these connect the viewers in associations with the gothic house, which is mysterious. Norman makes the viewers want to go in the building, but of course we don't for a long time. By using these camera angles, we see most of the outside of the house, leaving us to visit the inside only. There is a mixture of shots that Hitchcock has used. The camera usually does a close up of the money, even though the main story is not about this. This has a huge effect on the audience as it misleads them into thinking about the money all the time, and keeping an eye on it.
Psycho was a terrifying film in its days, and still to this very day it makes viewers tense with anticipation of what's to come. Many different and subtle innovative techniques were adopted to manipulate its audience. These techniques have succeeded, with no problem. They have been effective enough to get the audience right inside the film, and this is what Hitchcock wanted. Hitchcock has made a good film which makes you anticipate all the time, so you wait of what's to come next.