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.