the ring

1. The Ring
Elias Merheb
The moment that the film “the ring” starts is the moment we notice that we can expect something
mysterious. Before we see any of the actors, when the “DreamWorks” production comes up we see
that it isn’t as normal the screen is fizzing white like when you put your TV onto a channel with
nothing to watch on it. Also the sound of rain is going over the opening this is showing us that it is a
gloomy day which we can relate to the aspects that might happen later on during the film. The first
words that come on when the establishing shot of the house comes up are the words “ I hate
television” this can also be linked to the aspects that may occur throughout the film as the director is
introducing us to the action in this film already. There is a zoom shot into the faces of the two girls
as they watch TV. From the cloths the girls are wearing we can establish that they are school or
college girls, this is also linked to the mise en scene. All the background sounds are diagetic. We
also notice that they are talking about death and about a tape. This can also tell us that the film will
contain some sort of death in that sense. As the opening progresses, the phone rings and the girls get
scared because it is quite late in the night, especially after they where talking about the tape and
other scary things. We have a nice zoom into the watch on the desk to show us it is at a late time of
the day and give us that sense of uneasiness. We also have close ups of the two girls showing there
expressions and there sense of uneasiness is also present in the emotion given by there facial
expressions. The blonde haired girl seems shaken by the phone ringing because we seem to relate to
the fact that what she said before as a joke was actually true. As the audience we feel unease
because of the fact that anything in our house could be death threatening after what we heard the
two girls talk about and we relate to there fear also. We also notice that the long shot before they
pick up the phone they are very cautious and we feel for them as an audience because we are now in
there mindset.
That shot is finished off by the person on the phone being her mother and it also eases the audience
for a short amount of time before maybe engaging us into another fear factor.