The famous opening of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film, Psycho begins with a birds eye view of the city of Phoenix, Arizona. The camera pans across the city and shows the houses and cars, to create mise-en-scene. The camera begins moving in and focuses on a building, zooming until it reaches a window that leads the viewer into the opening interactions of the protagonists. The blinds are closed, leaving only a small gap in which the viewer looks into.
This sequence is known as the hand of god, in which the audience plays the role of God, and has the advantage of seeing what happens to the characters. This technique allows for the voyeurism of the viewer, while also creating fear, as the protagonists seem to be randomly chosen. This allows for the moral codes of horror to resonate with the audience.
We practiced using the hand of god in our prelim exercise.
Inspiration for my film: I don't want to include this technique in my opening, as I find it takes too long to set the scene for the short time I have available. However, I am using an adapted version taken from Cherry Falls (2000) that gives a similar effect, and denotes a small town and seemingly random chosen characters.
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