HB: Analysis of opening sequence - The Conjuring (Wan, 2013)

CK: Insidious Chapter 2 (Wan, 2013) Opening Sequence Analysis

Genre:

• Insidious belongs to the subgenre of supernatural horror, the dark setting, typical scary house and a person who we assume is a medium are all key conventions represented in this introduction.
• Other films which share these conventions are The Conjuring (Wan, 2013) and The Haunting in Connecticut (Cornwell, 2009).
• The audience’s expectations for a film such as this are fulfilled in the opening sequence, due to the eerie backing music, and the general feeling of supernatural unease which the audience get in the first few moments because of the theme of ghosts and hauntings.
• The text conforms to the characteristics of the genre.

Film Language:

Camera:

• The sequence opens with a low angle shot, in which we see a car pull up, and then a pair of legs walk into the shot, turn and begin walking away from the camera, up a set of stairs.
• As the woman walks up the stars the camera tilts up, revealing her destination, a rather foreboding house. The low angle makes the house look more imposing and scary. As well as this, the fact that we don’t see the woman’s face makes her seem mysterious.
• The mystery is then reinforced by an over the shoulder shot when she knocks on the door. This leads the audience to question who this woman is, and this adds to the suspense of the sequence.

Editing:

• Editing is used to add to the tension the use of the very slow cutting rate at the beginning. This keeps the audience waiting for the action, and the longer they wait, the more the tension builds.

Mise-en-scene:

• Mise-en-scene also conveys meaning in this sequence. The dark, eerie setting and the creepy, haunted house create a very tense and uncomfortable atmosphere for the audience.

Sound:

• The voice of the mysterious woman comes as quite a surprise, she has a very friendly, calming and almost matronly tone, which isn’t typical of horror. It makes the line ‘In my line of work, things tend to happen when it gets dark’ all the more surprising, as it seems strange that this kindly woman would be working with ghosts, as is inferred by her dialogue.
• Her tone of voice makes the line sound less ominous and more ‘matter of fact’ which has the effect of making the viewer feel uncomfortable and on edge.
• Non-diegetic sound is used at the beginning with the creepy introduction music, whilst the titles are being shown. This contrasts with the relative silence when the actual film starts, putting the audience on edge.

Titles:

• There are a total of 5 titles in the opening. They are pale blue on a black background, and little puff of smoke comes off each title as it appears, which clearly links to ghosts and the pale blue could link to cold and death.
• The title of the film doesn’t occur in this sequence of titles, instead it is shown about ten minutes in. this helps create suspense and mystery in the film, because the audience are forced to wait for the title, increasing the anticipation.

Narrative:

• In the introduction, a medium arrives at the house with the intention of helping a young boy who is being followed by an evil spirit, and suffers with nightmares. The audience see things from the medium’s perspective, with events unfolding for the viewer simultaneous with when they unfold for the medium.
• The key themes are death, possession and the supernatural.
• Tension is created and maintained through a combination of techniques. The location of a creepy house at night immediately creates a sense of foreboding, combined with the eerie silence, slow cutting rate and the fact that the audience know that they are watching a horror film creates and maintains tension within the audience.

Representation and Ideology:

• The medium and hero in this clip is a woman. Dominant ideologies in society would state that a strong male should be the hero, also in horror films in general, mediums are usually men, and it is usually woman who require help from a strong male figure. In this case, we see the woman take charge of the situation, she is clearly the expert, and her male colleague clearly looks up to her as such.
• This clip also reinforces dominant ideologies, because the mother is portrayed as being very motherly, caring and extremely concerned about her son's well being. She looks worn out and sick with worry, much like a typical mother who is worried about her child, and thus this clip reinforces this ideology.

Media Audiences:

• The target audience for this film would probably just be fans of the genre. It has quite a specific target audience as there are a lot of people of dislike horror. I think that teens would perhaps be more likely to enjoy something like this, due to the visceral buzz that you get after having been scared, whereas adults may be a bit calmer and thus uninterested in the genre.

Institutional Context:

• The main two characters in this film are played by Patrick Wilson, and Rosie Byrne, two reasonably high rated and famous actors.
• The quality of the cast would certainly have attracted a few extra viewers who wouldn't usually watch horror movies due to the typical 'B movie' standard of acting and production .
• This film was produced by Blumhouse Productions, a successful independent film company. They have produced films such as the 'Paranormal Activity' franchise, the first Insidious movie and Sinister, which were all very successful films, this would have attracted extra viewers as the film was in safe hands.
• With a budget of $5m, the film's box office was $161,919,318.

JH: Ghost Ship (Beck,2002) - Opening Scene Analysis

Group: Wilderness Woods Production

This was our groups first filming task together. From this task we have learned a lot that we are going to use in the real production. We decided after this film that the monster genre was just not suited to out group and have decided to go with ghosts for the real production. After finishing this production we all agreed that we had focused too much on the story line to our short film and not enough on the actual shots. This task was very helpful as it has shown us what its like to produce a small production and has given us lots of ideas for the real production.

Actors- James Hooper & Callum King
Directed by- Callum King
Edited by- James Hooper, Callum King and Hannah Bennett
Filmed by- Hannah Bennett

HB: Institutional Context - Halloween (Carpenter, 1978)

Halloween (Carpenter, 1978)

The Production:

• This independent film was originally intended to be called The Babysitter Murders, until the film’s producer Irwin Yablams suggested setting the film on Halloween night and calling it Halloween. 
• The film had a low (for the time) budget of $300,000. Director, John Carpenter had planned the story prior to it being filmed almost frame by frame ensuring he knew where suspense would be built. 
• The writing was done within 3 weeks by Carpenter and producer Debra Hill.

• It was stated that the film took a great amount of inspiration from Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) in terms of casting, characters, themes and shots. 
• For Yablam, inspiration was also taken from The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1973), when explaining the idea for the films plot he explained "I was thinking what would make sense in the horror genre, and what I wanted to do was make a picture that had the same impact as ‘The Exorcist’."

• Tommy Lee Wallace was the films production designer, art director, location scout and co-editor. 
• Costume: Michael Myers’ mask was actually created by Wallace from a Captain Kirk mask that was purchased from $1.99, many actors wore their own clothes and Jamie Lee Curtis’ (Lorrie) wardrobe was purchased for only $100.

• Due to the films low budget it did not feature (at the time) A-listers as the cast. 
• Also, it meant that the filming had a strict time schedule of 20 days located in South Pasadena, California and also at the cemetery at Sierra Madre, California. 
• The Myers’ house was also set in an abandoned house along with the use of two homes within Hollywood.
• For the trick or treat scenes, local families would dress their children in costumes and they would participate in the films making.

• Many of the main camera shots used were to increase the audience’s sense of participation.
• For example, close ups, zoom and especially POV shots from the perspective of Michael Myers to build tension and suspense. The film also used a great deal of stedicam to create a similar effect.

• Finally, there was very little use of the most typical pro filmic effect used within the horror genre, fake blood. 
• This was something Carpenter adopted from Psycho, he wanted to create a sense of fear and horror without the film being to gory. 
• When left to the imagination of the viewer it can often be more terrifying than if they are able to see all of the gore. 
• This is a different but effective twist to the slasher sub-genre. 

Distribution

• Compass International Pictures was responsible for the films distribution within Canada and the USA while the international distribution was done by Warner Bros. Pictures.
• This would have been beneficial to the film and Warner Bros. would have been able to use synergistic and symbiotic promotional activity to help ensure the film became known to primary audiences and secondary audiences.
• The film was marketed with a series of theatrical posters (see top) distributed throughout multiple countries with individual countries having a different design to suit what would appeal to their audiences.
• With these also came the iconic taglines “The night HE came home.” “The Trick is to stay alive.” And “Everyone is entitled to one good scare.”
• They also included clear horror iconography by including a knife.
• There was also a theatrical trailer released (see below.)
• The film initially had a platform release, first on 25^th October 1978 in Kansas City, Missouri before reaching the rest of the states and eventually went international (wide release) grossing a total of $70 million.

Group: Production Log - Wilderness Woods

What did we learn from our filming experience and how has it influenced ideas for our own production?

• Camera Techniques –  We were able to experiment with many different techniques and we were also able to learn how we can effectively utilise a location, such as the woods, for filming our horror film. 
• Location – Even though it is likely that we will not use the woods as the location for our production, having an hour to fully explore the area and decide on what places we felt would be best for certain scenes was beneficial to our understanding of location reccie’s.
• Story board –  We learnt that when it comes to filming our actual production we will have to work more prior to shooting on fully planning the plot with which shots we intend to use where and how. This way it will be less likely for us to continuously have to change our minds at the time when something did not work exactly how we had wanted it to. The best way for us to do this would be by creating a frame by frame storyboard for the film.   

Outline which techniques worked

• Whip pan – This was effective especially for use in horror as it helped to increase the films tension and suspense. We can find a way to replicate this when it comes to our actual production as this shot is good for creating a sense of audience involvement.
• High angle – This used with a pov shot created an effective perspective and allowed us to create the presence of Bigfoot without the audience ever actually seeing him. This could be a good shot to attempt to include in our production as it creates fear for the audience, seeing the action happen through the eyes of the antagonist.
• Over the shoulder – This was a good shot to use for a conversation scene as it allowed you to see the relationship between characters while they were talking. This made a good contrast from constant two shots so helped us to gain more of a variety.

Explain which ones didn't

• Tracking shot – this shot resulted in the camera telling us where the actors had to go rather that the other way around which meant the character blocking wasn't how we would have preferred. If we were to use this again then we would have to make sure that we fully plan out the staging for it all first so that it doesn't dictate the scenes composition.
•  Handicam – Some of these shots were effective though others were too shaky which caused the scene to not be in the best quality in comparison to some of the others which the tripod was used for. 

CK: Institutional Context - The Descent (Marshall, 2007)

The Descent (Marshall, 2007)

Production:

• Filmmakers originally planned for the cast to be both male and female, but Neil Marshall's business partner realised that horror films almost never have all-female casts. Defying convention, Marshall cast all women into the role.

• Marshall cited the films The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Thing, and Deliverance as influences in establishing tension in The Descent.

• Marshall also said at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival that was inspired by Italian horror films of the past, in particular by Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci.

• Production of The Descent was in competition with an American film of a similar premise, The Cave. The Descent was originally scheduled to be released in the United Kingdom by November 2005 or February 2006, but The Cave began filming six months before its competitor. The Filmmakers of The Descent decided to release the film before The Cave, so they fast-tracked production to be completed by the end of February 2005.

• Filmmakers kept the crawler design hidden from the actresses until they were revealed in the scenes in which the characters encountered the creatures, to allow for natural tension.

Distribution:

• The skull of a women motif used in some advertising material is based on Philippe Halsman's In Voluptas Mors photograph.

• The film's marketing campaign in the United Kingdom was disrupted by the London bombings in July 2005. Advertisements on London's public transport system (including the bus that had exploded) had included posters that carried the quote, "Outright terror... bold and brilliant", and depicted a terrified woman screaming in a tunnel. The film's theatrical distributor in the UK, Pathé, recalled the posters from their placement in the London Underground and reworked the campaign to exclude the word "terror" from advertised reviews of The Descent. Pathé also distributed the new versions to TV and radio stations. The distributor's marketing chief, Anna Butler, said of the new approach, "We changed tack to concentrate on the women involved all standing together and fighting back. That seemed to chime with the prevailing mood of defiance that set in the weekend after the bombs."

• Neil Marshall stated in a review "Shauna was pretty upset about it; it was on newspapers all across the county" and cites the attacks as harming the film's box office, as "people were still trapped underground in reality, so no one really wanted to go see a film about people trapped underground..."

• Many commentators, including writers for Variety and The Times, remarked on the rather unfortunate coincidence.

• Due to these events there was some initial concern that the film's release might have been delayed out of sensitivity for the tragedy but Pathé ultimately chose to release the film on schedule, with a slightly retooled advertising campaign; however, the US promotional campaign managed by Lionsgate Films was significantly different from the original European version.

Group: Location Reccie Planning

Purpose:
The purpose of this location reccie was, for the most part, to give us a chance to practice filming on location. We found this much more complicated than anticipated, because it is impossible to predict things such as walkers, wildlife, or in our case, a man mowing his lawn loudly near where we were filming. Setting up the tripod on the uneven ground in order to get a decent shot was also very challenging, and in a few instances we fear that we may have unintentionally captured a shot at a canted angle, rather than being completely level.

Risk Assessment:
One of the main risks we identified was the weather. We were forewarned that recent raining had rendered the ground extremely slippery, and this made it quite treacherous to get around the wood. To minimise the risk we all wore suitable footwear, and were particularly careful around the more muddy sections of the wood.
Losing equipment was also a risk. We made equipment checks at regular intervals to minimise the risk of this occurring.

Planning:
By using this location we have learnt that filming in the woods can be quite difficult, therefore, for our real production, we will most likely chose a different location. As well as this, next time we think that the filming would go much faster and smoother if we properly plan out both a decent storyline, and a variety of shots which we will use, because we found that the filming process was very disjointed and ineffective, as we only had a rough idea of what we were doing.

HB: The Representation of Women in Horror - Reading Source 1

Women’s repositioning within the horror genre

• Typically in horror films the female protagonist would often be the ‘weaker’ character who is terrorised by the antagonist

• Within the film women would be unable to defend their own lives so that task would be down to the male ‘hero’

• This took a turn in the late 1970’s as many directors e.g. John Carpenter and Wes Craven, made the decision to respond to politics at that time including the feminist movement, Vietnam War and race riots. 

• In films such as Halloween (Carpenter, 1978) and The Last House on the Left (Craven, 1972) are good examples of some of the earliest films to challenge the female character’s position in the film

• They became more independent managing to defend themselves, many even being brave enough to go in search of the danger themselves which is happening more frequently in films today.

Stalk and Slash

Conventions:

• In Mark Whitehead’s book ‘Slasher Films’ he describes the Stalk and Slash subgenre as an American product which is intensely formulaic. 

• The majority of these films all follow the same general plot which consists of a group of both male and female teenagers travelling to a remote location. 

• Once there, they begin to get murdered one by one by a killer who is unknown to both them and the audience, usually wearing a mask, until normally only one of them remains. 

• The final teenager with then have to confront the antagonist alone in order to survive, after the killer has been successfully murdered their identity and incentive is revealed. 

Typical audience:

• Research shows that the core audience for these films is predominantly teenage boys and young men 

• They watch these films for both the scenes of female nudity and also the gory depiction of murder and assault. 

• This caused makers of slasher films to be continuously in search of new horrific ways in which they could kill off characters in order to make their films more interesting and different.

Significance:

• It is argued that these films hold a significance, the slasher subgenre had with it the creation of two of the most iconic characters within horror, Freddie Kruger from The Nightmare on Elm Street series and Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13^th series. 

• Furthermore, these films regularly show a group of teenagers being punished for some form of earlier wrong doing which they may have done

• An example of this is trespassing on the killers land. 

• This, therefore, gives these films a deeper message to its audience which encourages them to remain well behaved without them realising it.

The Final Girl

• The concept of The Final Girl was created by Carol J. Clover, who explains the final girl to be the only female survivor within that slasher film. 

• Clover describes her as the smarter, more level headed, morally pure and watchful one

• Therefore, she is the first person to notice any threat of danger that there may be.

• The final girl initially lives up to the typical way that woman are presented in films, as mentioned earlier

• However, as the film progresses so does this character growing stronger and more mature. 

• It is usually the final girl who is faced with the task of killing the antagonist, often with a brutal weapon, which is why it is also stated that this character also gains some masculine characteristics by the end of the film.

Examples of the final girl:

Jess- Black Christmas (Clark, 1974) 

Sidney- Scream (Craven, 1996) 

JH : Institutional Context - The Blair Witch Project (Myrick & Sanchez, 1999)

Production-

• The film was directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez.
• The film had an incredibly low budget of just $25,000. In the box office it made over $248k making it a massive success.
• Almost 19 hours of usable footage was filmed over 8 days which was then edited down to 90 minutes.
• Auditions were held for actors with strong improvisational abilities as much of the acting was improvised.

Distribution-

• The film was released on the 30th July 1999 but it was first shown at the Sundance Festival earlier that year in January.
• Artisan entertainment bought the rights to the film for $1million,
• The website was used as one of the biggest ways to promote the film.
• They shot low budget trailers as shown below.

CK : History of Horror - Reading source 2

1. Why are stories that 'aim to scare their audience' so popular?

Horror films are popular because they play on our most deep seated fears and taboos, which can include things such as murder, kidnap and the paranormal. ‘Jump Scares’ have also more recently become very popular because of the excitement and the adrenaline rush after having just been scared, and the tension waiting for the next scare.

2. What insight can the study of horror monsters give?

An analysis of horror monsters in the light of their cultural contexts can give an insight into the anxieties and concerns of the contemporary culture. Of course, not all people have the same worries at any given time, but it is possible to identify general cultural and contextual trends through the monsters created for horror texts.

3. What did Nosferatu (1922), one of the earliest horror films use the vampire as a metaphor for?

In Nosferatu (Murnau, 1922) the vampire is an invader; it comes from elsewhere and brings disease to the local community. His method of attack involves penetration and the exchange of bodily fluids, which could be read as a sexual metaphor, however the main outcome of a vampire attack is death or infection. At the time of Nosferatu’s release, Germany was economically and socially devastated after WW1. Poverty and disease were a major issue and in 1918 many people died due to a flu pandemic. The vampire Count Orlok is rat-like in appearance and it is perhaps not surprising that a culture that had suffered at the hands of expansionist politicians and was now vulnerable to disease would respond to a monster that represented invasion and infection.

4.Read to the end of the article. Make notes on how there are different readings of horror based on socio/cultural contexts of the decade.

Many horror texts between the wars reflected the social changes in terms of power, authority and class that followed the political upheaval of WW1.

Nosferatu and Dracula (Browning, 1931) featured a corrupt and abusive aristocratic class who are the sources of horror.

In Frankenstein (Whale, 1932) the aristocratic class was also criticised.
Frankenstein has many other possible readings that relate to the context of the time. For example, the sympathetic representation of the monster could be read as a critical perspective on the racial tensions that were present in American culture at the time. The monster’s eventual death is represented as a mob lynching of an individual who cannot integrate into the dominant culture.
Post-WW2 films maintained the focus on monsters that invaded or infected, and the ‘science gone wrong’ motif expanded across both horror and science-fiction.
This could be due to horrors witnessed in the advances in military capabilities, culminating in the nuclear attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945, and the depths of human cruelty observed in the holocaust.
The 1960s was a time of social change and this was mirrored in its horror monsters.
Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) reflects the impact of Freudian theories on the culture’s understanding of the human psyche.

The mundane settings make the horror more effective than the distant, fantastical horror of the previous decades and the fact that the monsters now look like ‘us’ creates an unsettling realism.

Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968) which also used vivid and visceral representations of violence, making Psycho look quite tame. The optimism of ‘the Summer of Love’ that is often associated with this period was in fact tempered by the assassinations first of President Kennedy in 1963, and later of his brother Robert and Martin Luther King in 1968. America was at war in Vietnam and audiences in the late 60s were growing accustomed to seeing images of horrific real-life violence. Horror directors could only hope to scare these audiences if they produced horrors as violent and as extreme as the films and photographs that were shown on the evening news.
As horror moved into the 1970s the human monster became more sadistic. The Last House on the Left (Craven, 1972) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper, 1974) became infamous for their sustained graphic violence.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre showed the effect of social and economic isolation and on a rural family whilst The Last House on the Left bought the horror into small-town America. Both films identified a society that, despite idealised appearances, had a brutal underbelly.
The Exorcist depicted the secularisation of society that had occurred since World War 2 and dealt with the unease and uncertainty this was causing by using devils, demons and pagans as its monsters. The Exorcist was also a film that identified post-war changes in the structure of the family.

5. In the final paragraph, why according to Hendry is horror still relevant to audiences?

The genre has the ability to adapt to allow it to tap into each generation’s preoccupations and concerns and its metaphorical approach can be used to deal with ideas and issues that appeal to a range of audience groups. Other genres such as Westerns may not be able to speak to modern audiences in the way they used to but horror continues to provide a cultural catharsis over 100 years since it first hit celluloid.