The Film Opening:
The plot of the opening scene in the Conjuring is based around a doll called Annabelle who was thought to be possessed. The scene consist of parallel editing, whereby the audience is shown an interview between the parallel investigators and the victims against flashbacks of the story they are telling. The doll Annabelle has little presence in the remainder of the film and the characters the audience is introduced to initially are not present at all, aside from the investigators, for the remainder of the film. This effect is what makes this film opening so effective.
Firstly, the film begins in a room full of previously possessed or paranormally linked objects, with Ed Warren, the paranormal investigator, and an interviewer from a local newspaper. During this clip, the investigator begins to tell the story of Annabelle, which along with the background story of the possessed objects, immediately identifies the genre of the movie as supernatural possession.
The clip then cuts to the identifiable victims for the Annabelle story; the screenshot above shows an over the shoulder shot featuring the paranormal investigators also. Both investigators feature on either side of the over the shoulder shot to imply their equal importance in terms of role for the film as a whole.
The scene then cuts to the production company sequence, in this instance Warner Bros is used. The purpose of displaying the production company is to firstly, advertise the company the film production was in association with and to also enable the audience to immediately identify whether the pending film is one in which they would enjoy on based on previous films they may have enjoyed which were produced by the same production company.
The screenshot above shows the first introduction to the supposedly possessed Annabelle Doll, whereby there is an extreme close-up shot used of her eye. This is a common convention in many horror films, particularly supernatural horror as the shot is meant to represent looking into the soul of the demon or entity.
Although the lighting is very dark in this shot, the Annabelle doll can be seen illuminated by the light from the open doorway. In this clip itself, the victims have recently returned home which immediately puts the audience on edge as the scene clearly suggests a paranormal occurrence. The dark lighting surrounding the doll plays on the audience's fear in terms of the fear of the unknown; this creates tension in terms of what could be in the room that the doll is sat outside from.
This screenshot shows pictures of the victims which have been scratched out and damaged, which is a common convention in supernatural horror films. This technique is used to show how the entity targets its victims, wanting to take over them or eliminate them, as suggested by the scratch marks. This creates tension for the audience as enigma is created in terms of what will happen to the victim(s)... will they survive or not?
This shot above, although slightly unclear due to the lighting used, shows the victim putting the doll into a dumpster. The shot used is an aerial shot, which is effective in portraying the victim as weak and vulnerable, just as the entity desires. It also implies that the victims are being watched without their knowing, such as by the entity haunting them, unsettling the audience and creating a sense of dramatic irony as they know that throwing the doll away will not solve their problems.
Next, the victims are awoken by loud bangs on the door, to which they then found a note on the floor, inscribed 'Miss Me?', which was previously shown to be the iconic statement of the doll. Another set of bangs then occur, whereby the doll is found sitting outside another door. The use of the diegetic for bangs against the silence of the scene creates great contrast, making the user jump and immediately on edge, which is appropriate for the genre.
The scene then cuts back to the interview, whereby there is a reverse-track of Annabelle looking into the camera. As mentioned previously, close-ups of the eyes of a possessed being is a common convention in many supernatural possession films.
Soundtrack:
Throughout this scene, and the movie itself, non-diegetic slow and eerie stringed instruments are used in a lower pitch to create tension and build suspense. The parallel soundtrack used is iconic to the movie and used throughout, which is extremely effective in creating the atmosphere for the audience and setting the scene. As the scene develops and directs the audience into thinking something bad is about to happen, the soundtrack builds in tempo and volume to increase the tension.
Typography:
The typography used is rather effective and suitable to genre. As the image attached below depicts, the typography used is a black Serif font, commonly associated with possession films as the tend to be based around religion or set back in the past, whereby the standard font for old documents was Serif. The image below also shows the tagline: 'Based on the true case files of the Warrens', which is a common convention in supernatural films whereby the film is aimed to be represented as a true story in order to scare the audience more. Additionally, a Sepia effect is used on the image to imply that the film is set in older times and to make the setting look more eerie.
Overall, the film opening to the conjuring is very effective in identifying genre and setting the atmosphere for the audience. The most effect aspect of the opening, in my opinion, is that the narrative of the opening scene is different to the movie narrative, which confuses the audience, creating more tension and suspense for the remainder of the film.
No comments:
Post a Comment