The Shining Analysis (Danny and the twins, and Meeting Lloyd)

The Shining is a very well known psychological horror directed by Stanley Kubrick and these two scenes I chose to analyse, I believe are two amazingly shot scenes with many horror conventions that aren't obvious, they make you think about what is happening and mess with your head while you try to figure out what is actually happening. 

This scene begins with a long shot of Danny riding his tricycle through a kitchen corridor, he is in the center of the shot creating a line of almost symmetry which continues with an idea of mirrored reality that can be seen throughout the film; this shot is tracking Danny from behind to give the feel of following him, and even when he's no longer in shot the camera is still tracing down the hallway following the path that Danny had just taken on his trike. The sound in this is high non-diegetic that keeps going up in pitch the further Danny gets down the corridor and as he reaches the end of the corridor a sudden loud and different sound that draws attention to the fact that something is going to happen suddenly very soon; the use of the non-diegetic sound puts me on edge but draws me into the scene at the same time as the pitch draws higher I feel more involved in the scene because it tells that something is going to happen but you're not quite sure at this point, it just suggests that something significant is about to happen.
As Danny is riding down the shorter corridor its turned into a midshot, only showing his top half this shot continues to follow Danny round the corner rather than using a jump cut to when Danny has got round the corner, the jump of when you see the twins at the bottom of the corridor makes up for the lack of jump cut because you aren't expecting it because there was no warning of a jump which is why jump cuts are often used in horror to make the audience jump prior to the actual jump of the film. As Danny turns the corner it becomes a long shot of the whole corridor with the girls in the middle of the shot which again creates a line of symmetry that reflects the idea of the mirrored reality within the hotel. The girls are very immaculate in the way they are presented; their hair is extremely neat, they're dresses are pristine which puts emphasis on the weirdness that is going on in the hotel, as the audience this makes me feel almost uncomfortable as I know that they are the two girls that the old caretaker killed and seeing them all neat and tidy messes with the illusion that they were slaughtered with an axe. The shot to show the girls is paired with a percussion crash to emphasis the relevance of the girls to this story. The long shot is the contrasted with a close up on Danny's face to show that he is bemused and scared, his heavy breathing attracts focus onto how panicked he is by these two girls in front of him; it then cuts back to a long shot so Danny and the twins are in the shot this is when the twins start to talk to Danny, when they say "Hello Danny." It is in synchronisation which only adds to the eerieness of the twins it is also echoed which gives the impression that they aren't not really there and when they say "Come play with us." They're also out of shot as it is on a close up of Danny's face it also suggests that the twins aren't actually there as you cannot see them as they say it.

Jump cuts are used to show the girls at the end of the corridor to when they are are dead and covered in blood- which is a common convention of horror as it often makes viewers feel uncomfortable- when they are speaking to Danny, they're used almost as punctuation to put extra emphasis on "forever" become they are suggesting the same will happen to Danny and he'll then play with them 'forever'. The end of this scene ends with a close up on Danny's face its briefly shown as terrified before he covers his eyes with his hands as a reflex reaction of fear, he then peeks through his fingers like he's too scared to see what's there in front of him, it turns out to be an empty corridor with no evidence of the twins ever being there at all. Danny tells 'Tony' that he's scared but 'Tony' tells him its not real that it's like "characters from a book".
Throughout this scene there is high key lighting which completely contrasts with the darkness of the atmosphere in the hotel which makes me feel I'll at ease because of the stark contrast of the light and dark.

This scene begins with a tracking long shot of Jack Nicholson's character Jack walking through a corridor, he's never quite in the centre of the corridor as if he's not mentally balanced. The board outside of the Gold Room has a old style look to it, which leaves unanswered questionsquestions as to why the board is so old fashioned at this point of the film. When Jack enters the room and turns the lights on it also turns on the table lights which wouldn't have been attached to the mains wires, which suggests something unnatural is happening in the hotel. The sound throughout the beginning of this scene is a high pitch non-diegetic sound, the night pitch of the sound puts me on edge as its a sound that goes straight through my spine making me feel like the ominous happenings of the Overlook hotel may happen to me as the viewer.
When Jack sits down he mumbles to himself before smiling and saying "Hi Lloyd." Which as a first time watcher was freaky because he was alone in the bar then all of a sudden he's talking to someone, there's then an eye-line match to see Lloyd who Jack is looking at behind the bar; Lloyd is surrounded by high key lighting which contrasts to the room and suggests there's something about Lloyd that isn't quite right.
From the point that Jack sits down at the bar the majority of the score is mid-shots, keeping us close to the characters without it being uncomfortable as they talk, but as Jack talks about hurting Danny in the past Lloyd is never properly in shot which adds to the suspicion about Lloyd, also whenever Lloyd talks it echo's like the twins did which gives the impression of ghosts and thts he's not really there like with the girls before. The idea of ghosts, living undead and supernatural beings are a very common convention of horror films as it gives the film an element of the unnatural world colliding with the real world. As well as this Jack says "I always liked you. You were always the best..." Which adds the likelihood of Lloyd not being real as Jack used 'liked' rather than 'like' and 'were' rather than 'are' which makes Lloyd a past tense figure, supporting the supernatural theory of Lloyd and the girls in the hotel.
Even though the room's lights are on the lighting is still low key which suggests darkness within the room and not just in the physical aspect of the lights in the room but almost spiritually because of Lloyd.

The ways darkness and evil are presented in these two scenes shows a high standard of skill from Stanley Kubrick.