Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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toward open windows and doors, bracing herself for something or someone to scare
her. The viewer is led to share this suspense, and the low, steady music from the
score helps facilitate this. The editing is steadily measured in pace with her
deliberate steps through the cabin. When she sees nothing at the window, she moves
to the door, which suddenly slams shut, which is accompanied by a loud sound effect
and an unexpected swift series of edits. She relaxes as she realizes the wind blew the
door shut, but as she reaches to open it, Jason appears just outside, steps in and slams
the door as she screams. The score begins to combine loud, pulsating low notes with
fast, sharp high notes. At the moment the door slams however, the image cuts to a
full shot of the cabin door from the outside, the score decreasing in volume, and
Paula’s screams slightly muffled by the separation between her and the spectator by
the cabin wall. There are sounds of nondescript items being thrown and torn, as well
as glass breaking. There is then a cut to an extreme long shot of the cabin from the
outside, and all the sounds that appear in the previous shot decrease in volume. This
shot holds for four seconds before cutting to a close up of one of the cabin windows
from the outside. The sounds raise slightly in volume, and there is a sudden loud
splattering sound that accompanies a splash of blood that sprays on the window,
before the shot cuts to the next sequence. Every one of these shots is steady and
tripod mounted, and in the case of the doorway and the window, geometrically
symmetrical, aside from shifts in lighting. This distancing position, both in terms of
camera positioning and sound positioning as well as the length of the shots all
indicate a rare occurrence of an omniscient perspective used during a death
sequence.
While an omniscient perspective, in this case, shares certain points of contact
with the perspective of an aggressor, they are distinct perspectives that are important