Psycho Film Opening

Conventions and things that you expect to see in a slasher films opening sequence;

• Opening Credits
• Audio Bridge (sometimes)
• Intertextuality
• False scare
• Post modernism
• Narrative Enigma
• Exposition/Anchorage
• Polysemy
• Idents
• Non Diegetic Music
• Chase Scene
• Scream Queen or King
• Slice and Dice
• Stalk and Slash
• Final Girl ?
• Short Takes

Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock,1960)

The film starts of with a white and black theme so that the blood and gore can be tonned down so that the film can be screened because it was too bloody if it had been in colour and the producing company told them that they had to make it less gorey. The film only has one ident which is that of Panorama. The title sequences were done by Saul Bass who was the most famous person for making title sequences at the time in the 1960's. The opening title credits show Hitchcocks name come up at the start of the sequence and at the end of the opening credits showing his power and a scence of authority. Also the main characters such as Janet Leigh were shown in the opening sequence to have their names in big and bold writing and the less important characters to not have such a big credit. The music and audio was done by Bernard Herrmann who was alos the most famous producer of music for films at tha time. The opening shot is an Extreme long shot  and its an Establishing shot aswell. The signified setting is in a city which we later discover by the sub titles its Arizona in the early 1960's. The font of the credits and subtitles are a serif font which is unusual for a slasher or horror film. usually they are a sans serif font which gives it more of an impact or meaning to the film.