Eden Lake Deconstruction

Deconstruction of the two minute opening.


Director: James Watkins 2008
Budget: not shown
Opening weekend;
USA: $5,824
UK: £192, 027

 The film begins with titles in red across a black background. The titles are in a sans serif font and there are flickers and shadows across them. The screen turns black. here is then a flash of an insert/picture. The flash is of a woman lying down in the woods; however, the flash is very fast so the content of the image is not viewed. The photo is also edited with high exposure levels which make the photo look very bright, thus making it even harder for the viewer to denote the image.

• There is high pitched non-diegetic music playing which create a tense atmosphere. Another flash image insert appears of rippling water.
• The screen goes black until another flash shot appears on screen. This image is also very bright. It is a close up of a woman screaming and covered in blood. The black screen then shows more titles .
• The next flash photo insert is of the woman hand cuffed with barbed wire, her facial expression shows she is crying out and she is covered in blood.
• The next flash does not show an image immediately but starts changing colour to red then a picture begins to show of some reeds, but it is not very clear due to the bright over exposure editing.
• The film then flashes-back to the screaming bloody woman.
• The next flashing image is a close up of a boys hand. There is non-diegetic sound of a fuzzy signal on an electronic device.
• It then flashes back to a red background with half an image of numbers which could signify a code. 

There are then flashing lights on a long shot of a lake. The screen turns back to black as the music builds to a crescendo or thunderous end.


1. Establishing shot, mid angle; contrasting environment of a nursery. There are lots of small pre-school aged children. Soft sunshine yellow lighting and bright, happy coloured displays and toys. The children and the teacher are singing peekaboo. 
2. A close up of the teacher shows she is young, pretty and dainty-looking, and she has blonde, short, curly hair. 
3. Long shot of class responding positively to the teacher and by the words of the teacher, the viewers denote that it is the end of the week. 
4. Close up of teacher gazing into classroom after the children have left. There is a nostalgic look to her expression.
5. Long shot/establishing shot of roads and school. Diegetic noise of children playing and non-diegetic soothing classical music. 
6. Close up of a young-middle aged man, wealthy looking waiting in a car, opens an engagement ring box and smiles.
7. Long shot, mid angle. The teacher skips out of school. Non-diegetic romantic music playing. She runs to the car as the man hides the ring- shot reverse shot. She gets in the car, kisses him and the car drives away. 
8. Long shot of the car driving away.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1020530/

Our 2 minute opening relates to the 2 minute opening of Eden Lake as both include flashes of photographs. To achieve the desired bright/ slightly unclear effect we will edit them. We already took some photographs; however, they were not up to the standard we hoped for so we will re-take them again and attempt to make them look more like the flashes of pictures in Eden Lake.