Semiotic Analysis (V1)

The scene starts with no bias or disposition - showing a woman, at a point of vulnerability - being naked - turning on the water for her shower. As the water turns on, she looks up at the roof with her face showing glee or pleasure - enjoying the niceties of her private shower, away from prying eyes. The shot of the scene then changes, to have her in the bottom right of the screen, and the shower curtain becomes the main focus, in which the shadow of a person begins to form. As they enter the shot, their silhouette is in complete darkness, possibly hinting at their character embodying the 'enemy' of the woman in the shower, who until this point has been bathed in shades of whites. There is no sound, bar the water of the shower, and some light music, however as soon as he rips open the curtain, the shrill string instruments - the motif of the film - begin to play their harsh tune. This music represents the violence of the scene, and tries to play in time with the stabbing, which has little additional noise. As the camera pans down, and the murderer character walks away, the music follows this theme, and begins to soften, and become a lower octave, while still being played with a dramatic timbre. As this movie was released in 1960, the technology was still quite rudimentary, meaning that Hitchcock had to be creative when shooting this scene, and although the continuity between shots would be absolutely shocking by todays standards, at the time it was an absolute spectacle. According to Peter Bogdanovich, an American movie director, "it was actually the first time in the history of movies that it wasn’t safe to be in the movie theatre, and when I walked out into Times Square at noon I felt I had been raped."

The scene continues with pensive shots of the female character moving down the wall, in agony and disbelief, that she'd been attacked in her safe space, in the shower - where someone should always feel safe. Perhaps the reason why this scene was so revolutionary is the fact that, before this, people had felt a sense of security, and after peeping into the mind of this faux-murderer, they're unsure as to whether something like this could happen, and whether it could happen to them. It ends with a shot of a mixture of blood (presumably red food colouring) and water pouring down the drain, with no musical or aural accompaniment, and just the sounds of the water hitting porcelain. This sound-design technique is done commonly in horror movies, where there will be a large display of commotion, emphasised by a big moment in the music, which is then juxtaposed by either silence accompanying the visual, some minimalist music, or alternatively just the environmental sounds.

As some of the other guys have already re-shot the scene on campus, we're recreating this scene to be a shampoo/shower commercial, with the person coming in and giving the woman in the shower a shampoo bottle, instead of a knife sandwich. This would subvert the audiences expectations, as they'd be expecting some violence and themes of murder due to their understanding of the parodied piece of media. Then when the shower curtain opens up, and the woman is handed a shampoo bottle, it'll create a moment of humour, in which people may be more likely to buy our product, as it relates to the audience, and would probably remain at the forefront of their thoughts if they had to go out the next day and buy a brand of shampoo.