1. Psycho

2. Essentials Director: Alfred Hitchcock Screenplay: Joseph Stefano
Music: Bernard Hermann
Released September 8, 1960
Appears on the National Film Registry as well as #14 on the 2007 AFI List

3. Characters in this scene
Anthony Perkins… Norman Bates
Martin Balsam… Detective Arbogast

4. Summary
FILM: Psycho begins when a secretary pockets the money that her employer has entrusted her to deposit in the bank. After skipping town, she pulls into the Bates Motel along a lonely stretch of highway. There she meets the seemingly quiet and shy proprietor, Norman. She is brutally murdered in her room’s shower later that night, and the viewer wonders if Norman is her killer. Or could it have been his mother???
SCENE: Following the woman’s disappearance, an investigator visits the Bates Motel to try to find more information on her whereabouts.

5. Thesis
With attention to long shots, angles, eye-line match, and mise en scene, director Alfred Hitchcock portrays not only the ominous setting of the Bates Motel, but also the danger that awaits anyone who dares enter.
Go to clip (note-I relied on YouTube, so there is a part where the detective goes into the office (where the bird is), but that isn’t in this clip.
Clip:

6. ESTABLISHING SHOT:
seems to be dusk/ nighttime
Light diminishingdanger

7. ESTABLISHING SHOT/MISE EN SCENE:
DETECTIVE ALONE IN SURROUNDINGS
COLUMNS/TREES ALMOST LIKE CAGEHE’S TRAPPED

9. ESTABLISHING SHOT AND MISE en SCENE
E.S. MAKES DETECTIVE LOOK SMALL IN COMPARISON TO THE BATES HOUSEHIS VULNERABILITY
BUILDING COLUMNS/TREES: ENTRAPMENT, DOOM
NOTE LIGHT: COMPELLING, DANGEROUS

10. DETECTIVE TO BIRD TO DETECTIVE
EYELINE MATCH:
DETECTIVE TO BIRD TO DETECTIVE
SUBJECTIVE POV:
VIEWER EXPERIENCES/
ASSESSES SITUATION ALONG WITH DETECTIVE
MISE EN SCENE with BIRD: OFTEN OMINOUS SIGN, PLUS IT’S STUFFEDCONQUEST
MEDIUM SHOT:
WHAT DON’T WE SEE?

11. HARSH ANGLES:
LIKE GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM TO REFLECT DISORDER; LABYRINTH—IS THERE ANY ESCAPE?

12. LOW ANGLE/ESTABLISHING SHOT/MISE EN SCENE: DETECTIVE HAS ACHIEVED HIS DESTINATION, BUT DANGER LOOMS (LIGHT IN UPPER LEFT CORNERALMOST SUPERNATURAL AND HE STILL LOOKS TRAPPED

13. MEDIUM SHOT: AUDIENCE WONDERS ABOUT SURROUNDING, UNSEEN DANGER
MISE EN SCENE: STAIRS, DOORS, HALL WITH ARCHED DOORWAY: LIKE A LABYRINTHE
NEAT, ORDERLY: DECEIVING? STERILE?
EYELINE MATCH: VIEWER BECOMES LIKE A DETECTIVE AS WELL

14. If this were a real project…
The clip we viewed would be too short; yours needs to be about 4 ½ to 5 minutes
If this were a complete presentation, the rest of the clip would be analyzed.
NEXT SLIDE: You try an analysis of a screencapped sequence.

18. ANALYZE:
HIGH ANGLE
YOU CHOOSE 1 OTHER ELEMENT