Sunday, June 27, 2010

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 3 of Scream (0:16:50-0:18:22)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!


SCENE 3
Length: 1min 33secs
Primary Characters: Sidney Prescott and Tatum Riley (Rose McGowen)
Pop Culture References:
  • None :(


And so we're introduced to Woodsboro High (not "Greensboro" as the DVD box of Scream 3 misinforms). One thing that I really like about the Scream movies is how cinematic they look. Director Wes Craven and cinematographer Mark Irwin routinely use crane shots, utilise the wide screen and fill the frame with interesting compositions, which is not something you tend to find in a slasher movie. One such moment is this scene where we first see the required High School. Could have simply been a static shot of the school, but instead we get a swooping crane shot that gazes over the media circus out front before settling on Neve Campbell's Sidney yet again. She's definitely the "final girl", you can already tell.


And I like how in this shot the camera ever so vaguely hovers on the sight of this TV news reporter wearing a bright lime green outfit. Even in a distant wide shot Gale Weathers is trying to grab our attention. Attention got!


HI GALE WEATHERS, AUTHOR OF THE GALE WEATHERS STORY SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING GALE WEATHERS!

She's barely in this scene at all, but a brief moment, and yet not only do we know she's going to be a major player (she is played by Courteney Cox, after all), but characters we're not meant to notice don't get to wear lime green ensembles. They just don't.


Everyone say hello to Tatum Riley.

Do it!

"Hi Tatum!"

That's better. You will grow to love this woman. As played by Rose McGowen, Tatum is the prerequisite best friend whose acts overtly sexual (she's wearing that outfit to high school and "thank you very much" say all the teenage boys) but she is actually quite endearing. And, as this scene shows, tactful:


"Casey Becker and Steve Orth were killed last night. And we're not just talking killed, we're talking splatter movie killed. Ripped open from end to end."
"Casey Becker? She sits next to me in English."
"Not anymore!. So sad, her mom and dad found her hanging from a tree, her insides on the outside.
...
"Dewey was saying this was the worst crime they've seen in years. Even worse than... well, it's bad."


Oh, Tatum! Way to walk directly into the elephant in the room!

Intro, Scene 1 Scene 2

8 comments:

Wings1295 said...

Great, and you hit on all the highlights. Sometimes, Craven is just great, isn't he?

Mierzwiak said...

Great reading, can't wait for the next parts. Especially from "Scream 2" which is my favourite from the trilogy.

PS. Rose McGowAn.

Anonymous said...

Awesome. I'm loving this series of posts. So much so that I had to have a Scream marathon this weekend. I forgot how much I love Randy, lol.

John in Jersey said...

Okay, I have to admit I had my doubts about this "Scream" undertaking of yours. But you are nailing it and I am loving it. Forgive me, I am new and was unaware of your abilities and talents! You now have my undivided attention... and you have me all excited to revisit certain scenes under your microscope. Phenomenal job. Love it.

Fernando Moss said...

Oh how I love Tatum!

Glenn Dunks said...

Alethe, Randy is coming up soon. I am so excited. I'm sure he'll be fun to write about.

Vertigo, wow! I just realised I've been spelling her name wrong all these years! This is... weird.

Philip said...

Rose McGowan<3

Tatum was one of my favorites. [SPOILER] I hate that she had to die. :( [/SPOILER]

I doubt anyone who hasn't seen them is reading any of this--anyone who wouldn't want to be spoiled--but still, I figured I should put a spoiler warning anyway. :P

Oh, and a little trivia I heard: Rose discovered during filming that she could actually fit through the doggy door in the garage. Lol. So sad. :'(

Glenn Dunks said...

Philip, I'm completely disregarding spoiler warnings here. If people want to follow this project without being spoiled then they're deluding themselves. It's not hard to see the movies, really.

I've already spoiled who one of the killers is anyway!