The Conjuring
We have chosen to analyse several film openings with the supernatural genre for inspiration- the conjuring was one of them. The opening of the movie is shown to have a eerie tone, this is portrayed through the dull/dark colours used. Creepy sounds and music begins to play and the audience are able to tell that the movie is going to be scary. The opening scene starts with only dialogue and a blank black screen already sets the eerie mood, we are drawn focus to the first piece of dialogue said ''When you hear this you are going to think we are insane''- already there is a threatening situation shown to the audience, this is a small hint that supernatural situations will occur. Visually show is a close up of the dolls (Annabelle) eyes, this immediently creates a sense of fear and they are in close view of a terrifying object. The shot is left for a long pause due to the fact that the prop presented to us may have a significant position in the movie and the director wants us to remember it.
The Woman In Black
In the opening scene of women in black, which lasts about 1:40s, we as the audience see someone pouring imagery tea in a cup and this indicates to the audience that the unseen character is graceful as they pour the imagery tea in the cup and this may suggest that it could a young girl. The director deliberatley used porcelain dollsto represent the children, to suggest that they are extremely fragile. We also know that the film is trying to represent the time period, as we see that the dolls are very old fashioned and antique in our period of time, it shows that they are wanting the audience to go back to the 1930’s as all dolls are said to be antique if they are below the 1930’s. So this gives the impression to the audience that the film is going to be in the early 1930’s. We can also tell from the from the clothing that the children are wearing that is set back in time too. Thier dresses are pastle colours, theses colours usually symbolise purity, victim and innocence playing in the background, adds a calm yet spooky feeling to the scene. Also the non-digetic music takes away the innocence of the tea party they they are having, as its very dark and mysterious. this creates tension amongst the audience. Digetic music is used as the teapots and dolls break apart
As the film has the extreme close up of the teapot and cup, the music is very low, slow motioned and has a very funeral sound to it because of the bells, its gives the effect to the audience that it is going to be a film about death, so we get to know that the film is a in the horror genre. We also get a mid-shot of the three girls turning around and staring at nothing, this gives the effect to the audience that there is also going to be so paranormal features within the film, such as ghosts, as the girls once they’ve stared at nothing, look at the window start walking and crushing their dolls on the way, which tells the audience that it has a very hypnotic sense of genre to it too as they walk out of the window.
When the girls stare at nothing we can tell that there’s a ghost there, which tells the audience that there’s an evil entity present. As the girls have been put in a type of hypnotic state to kill themselves, it makes the audience feel sorry for the children, and make you go against the ghost which makes the audience think of the ghost as the antagonist. It’s the antagonist of the film because the entity makes the girls kill themselves; this tells the audience that the ghost is going to go around killing people for some sort of reason that will be shown later on in the film.
In the end of the opening scene, there is a dark figure shown. The figure is perhaps the antagonist of what just happened and probably throughtout the film.
As the film has the extreme close up of the teapot and cup, the music is very low, slow motioned and has a very funeral sound to it because of the bells, its gives the effect to the audience that it is going to be a film about death, so we get to know that the film is a in the horror genre. We also get a mid-shot of the three girls turning around and staring at nothing, this gives the effect to the audience that there is also going to be so paranormal features within the film, such as ghosts, as the girls once they’ve stared at nothing, look at the window start walking and crushing their dolls on the way, which tells the audience that it has a very hypnotic sense of genre to it too as they walk out of the window.
When the girls stare at nothing we can tell that there’s a ghost there, which tells the audience that there’s an evil entity present. As the girls have been put in a type of hypnotic state to kill themselves, it makes the audience feel sorry for the children, and make you go against the ghost which makes the audience think of the ghost as the antagonist. It’s the antagonist of the film because the entity makes the girls kill themselves; this tells the audience that the ghost is going to go around killing people for some sort of reason that will be shown later on in the film.
In the end of the opening scene, there is a dark figure shown. The figure is perhaps the antagonist of what just happened and probably throughtout the film.
Insidious
The opening sequence of the film consists of different camera shots in the house so for example they would have an ultra slow motion camera shot of the stairs and then move onto the kitchen and living room etc. these shots were very effective as they were shot in black and white and had many effects on them such as smoke and shadows. shot consisted of pan shots ultra slow motion and tilt shots. The soundtrack used in the movie was very effective. the music which was played while the title was on screen had a great effect as it was of a high pitch and very loud. This has a direct effect on the audience as it makes them jump and they remain nervous for the rest of the film. Also the soundtrack which was used when they moved into their second house when the women was seeing boys running around the house was very effective as the music was again high pitched and at a steady pace which had an immediate creepy ramification on the audience.The mis-en-scene of the movie was very stereotypical of horror movies as it was shot in an old fashioned traditional large house. this was a good location because the first shot in the movie was of the house so the house had to be a creepy one so as soon as the audience see that they will know the genre of the movie and have a slight idea of what its about. i thought the prop design was especially good as the story line was of them moving into a new house so the house was very messy with boxes and clothes everywhere. The use of these particular props is to make it look the plot seem more realistic.
Planning
After getting the scenario and the introduction on what we had to do, our group decided we would make a plan of the genre we wanted to follow. As you can see from our brainstorm we discussed as many types of genres as possible to pick form and noted them down on a spider diagram. Me and Ben decided that a Horror would be a very good genre to use as you can build up a tracks of events to create this major suspense which draws the audience in. Whereas Danish and Nasim wanted to do a Action. Their reasons for this is you can capture a lot of fast pace shots from different angles whilst the robbery is taking place. To make our decision we decided to present our plan to each other and see which one seems more realist to create and then choose. Danish and Nasim idea was a robbery based idea. Robbing a bank was their main aspect of the movie and me and Ben wondered if the location would be to difficult t find or do. So after discussing the two different ideas we decided as a group to follow up mine and Ben's idea due to the fact that the location would be a lot easy to find and the idea itself had a lot of depth.
Once settling on the idea of the genre horror for our film opening, we had to come to the decision of slightly changing it to a similar genre with similar conventions- resulting in choosing thriller. This was due to the difficulty of location so we had to come to a decision of slightly changing our idea in order for us to keep up to the time table we had set ourselves, so we would not fall behind with this project.
Once settling on the idea of the genre horror for our film opening, we had to come to the decision of slightly changing it to a similar genre with similar conventions- resulting in choosing thriller. This was due to the difficulty of location so we had to come to a decision of slightly changing our idea in order for us to keep up to the time table we had set ourselves, so we would not fall behind with this project.