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  • Writer's pictureIulio Kambe

9 Frame Analysis 1

Updated: Nov 26, 2019

The first video being analyzed is a psychological thriller called "Yellow" by Pocket Films https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUB-h9AbyuE&t=329s. The story is about a man waking up in a hotel room, and when he goes to shave in his bathroom, he starts hearing some knocking sounds on his door but there is nothing; this is where the horror begins.

He then remembers that the night before, he was drunk while driving and hit a cyclist, eventually killing him. Now the cyclist's ghost is haunting him.


Frame 1: The character is seen from the 3rd person point of view with a long shot so the whole set can be seen and making him smaller, putting him in a position of weakness. The light in the rooms indicates the danger: the dark room suggests that the room is a dangerous and eventually unknown place while the bathroom is being lit up, meaning that it is a safe place; according to conventions of horror movies.

As he notices something that attracts his attention in his suitcase(it can be seen later that it is a gun), the music starts playing, underlining his curiosity being triggered.


Frame 2: The second frame is a frame that will be used over and over again throughout the film. Due to its dark colors and a close-up on the eye of the horse, this shot makes the atmosphere menacing and "heavier", like somebody is secretly watching, as the music goes heavier as well.

Thos feeling of being observed is given also due to the fact that the character is most of the time seen from a certain distant place from him.


Frame 3: After closing the door leading to the bathroom, meaning that he encloses himself into the dark room, where the danger happens. The medium shot allows the character's face to be seen clearly, going with it his scared expression but also the gun against his chest that he has in his hand showing that he is trying to protect himself and the light suddenly changes as the shot changes from the one before and this one.

As he rises his head, the character's movement interrupts the music to leave a sudden silence before some knocking noises can be heard again knocking harder and harder as he raises his head, interrupting the silence and setting a mental pressure.


Frame 4: This frame shows the persona's sight using a POV shot. We understand from some frames before that he is having a flashback and this is a memory that he has from last night when he hit a cyclist by driving while being drunk. The shot being an extreme long shot, the person being hit cannot be clearly seen, therefore putting a bit of mystery accompanied by an intriguing music.

The light is set onto the man lying on the street, it prevents the attention from the viewer to see anything else around and puts him in evidence, making him the subject of this frame.


Frame 5: The fifth frame shows at first a close up to some black liquid flowing which is actually red but since it is dark it is perceived as black, which is obviously blood. The camera then does a pan movement showing the leg of the cyclist being dead, putting in the center of the frame his yellow shoe. Then the camera stops for a few seconds in order to show that the body isn't moving and to confirm that the cyclist is dead. And as the camera movement stops, the musical note is extended to give an impactful feeling to the scene and to show its importance.


Frame 6: This frame is shot as a lower angle shot giving an impression of being directly menaced, empowering the subject. Due to the position of the character who is sitting on the floor and the shot being shot from a lower angle, we can also determinate that it is a POV from the protagonist's view.

The light is only on the wall, which allows the shadow to be seen in its "entirety". This shadow is throwing a ball in the air, due to earlier scenes such as a tennis ball rolling from under the bed or the bath being filled with tennis balls it can be understood that this shadow throwing a ball, which is a tennis ball, is part of the paranormal activities that happens in the film. Also due to the flashback that the man had, we could've identified that the shoes worn by the dead man were tennis shoes, showing that this silhouette of a man is the ghost of the cyclist.

As the shadow appears on the screen, the volume of the music suddenly increases and the music does some high-pitched screechings.

This shot is an interesting shot in the way it is filmed and organized regarding the light, colors, music, and mise-en-scene because it uses some conventions in the genre of horror movies used in the 50's-60's. This might be a reference to the famous film director Alfred Hitchcock.


Frame 7: This seventh frame is a long shot from a high angle in the corner of the room, the character is shown pouring himself a drink as he isn't aware nor worried about anything, like at the beginning of the film. Since in a shot earlier, the character appears waking up, suggesting that all that happened was a dream. But this way of filming the character being careless imitates the view of a predator which is about to attack its prey. This shot shows that the protagonist is in danger.

As for the sound, except the ticking of the clock, no sound can be heard after the man wakes up. The music stopped in order to give the impression that the danger is gone but the loud ticking of the clock maintains a certain pressure onto the scene without breaking the tense rhythm created by the sound and the other frames throughout the film.


Frame 8: Is an American shot, allowing to see the man's expression and movements. The light seems slightly brighter in this scene as he laughs, making the atmosphere less dense, although it is a laughter filled with stress, yet, the sound of the clock is still going on. After a reverse shot with Marilyn Monroe's face interrupting his laughter the frame of the horse eye can be seen again with a musical dramatical not begins to play, deconstructing this brief moment of light in the movie.


Frame 9: The yellow shoes are shown, pointing at what the character is looking at, since in the frame before, his laughter was stopped by him realizing something and his mimics were showing that he was worried again.

As the shoes are shown, the music suddenly starts again, implying that there actually is something abnormal happening since it was his victim's shoes.

The film ends with this shot letting the viewers on a cliffhanger and letting the horror be without having any good nor bad ending.


This short film follows the conventions and as mentioned in the 6th analyzed frame, it uses techniques used by the famous filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock.

Yellow follows the"generic" horror movie's conventions by firstly taking place in an enclosed space then, it uses the lighting and sound as indicators of danger,


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