Similar Products- The nine shots

The hours

In the first shot of ‘The hours’, we see a shot of a lake and then text fades in and the text tells the audience when this movie is set in and where. There is diegetic sound of the water. The camera then tilts up and turns into an establishing shot of the country side where we see lots of trees.

The second, extreme close up shot shows a person buttoning up their coat and then putting their hands in their pockets. This shot shows that one of the main characters is a woman because on the coat, the buttons are the way they are on a woman’s coat and the hands look quite feminine. Her hands suggest she’s quite young because her hands are not wrinkly. The woman then puts her hands in her pockets and she starts to walk, this tells us she is going somewhere which creates enigma as the audience are going to be wondering where she is going and why. This will pull the audience into the movie as they will want to find out.

The next shot is a long shot of the woman walking out of her door. The mise-en-scene shows that she must be well-off because the house looks very expensive. The woman puts her hands in her pockets again which could suggest that she has something important in them and she is holding it to keep it safe. You hear the sound of her footsteps because she is wearing heals. This shows that the character is very lady-like and her clothing also suggests so. Very subtle sound of birds singing.

The woman walks across her garden, looking down. This is an establishing shot. The sound of birds singing is heard again which supports the idea that this is shot in the country side.

In this long shot, you see the woman walk a lot quicker now as if she is hurrying to do something. The audience are going to keep watching the movie as they will want to find out where she is going and why she is walking so quickly. In the past seven shots, we still haven’t seen the woman’s face which makes the opening sequence quite mysterious and the viewer is going to want to keep watching to find out who this woman is.

In this mid shot, we finally see the woman’s face as she walks towards a gate and opens it. She has a very angry look on her face and she seems lost in her thoughts. This is going to grab the audience into the film and her face expression is telling the audience how to feel. There has been no music so far, just the sound of birds and the woman’s footsteps.

In this extreme close up of the woman’s hand, we see a feather quill pen and an ink holder. This fits in with the 1940’s (the date when the movie is set) and it makes it more realistic as that’s what people those days would be writing with. We hear the first dialogue when the woman says, “Dearest, I feel certain that I’m going mad again,” this voice over continues to the next shot. The fact that she says “again” tells the audience that she has already gone mad before. The audience will keep watching to hopefully find out why she went mad before and what caused her to go mad again.

In this long mid shot we see the woman walking really quickly and she is holding something in her hand. The voice over then continues and the woman says, “I feel we can’t go through another of these terrible times,”. This is going to attract the audience as they are going to want to find out what is going to happen. The dialogue suggests that this woman is going to commit suicide and the audience are going to want to know if she does, so they will keep watching. Because she says “we”, it tells the audience she is writing this letter to someone else, probably someone she is in a relationship with or married to. It suggests that they have a problem in their relationship.

“-and I shan’t recover, this time” the voice over continues and tells us that the woman recovered last time she went mad but this time she can’t do it, this again suggests that she is going to commit suicide. She is wearing the same coat as she is in the shots of her walking somewhere. This suggests that she wrote this letter on the same day and that the destination she is hurrying to is the place she is going to kill herself. All these shots have realistic or low-key lightning which makes the movie look real and also creates a depressing mood.