Media studies

Pixx Productions
Ayan Magudia

Analyse Opening Sequence 2

Director: JAMES WATKINS Year: FEBUARY 10TH 2012
The conventions of the horror genre have been followed in the woman in black trailer as you
can see when you watch it, the tensions within the audience gets bigger causing excitement.
The trailer slowly grabs the audience attention and slowly draws them into it making then
feel even more involved. the fast paced editing when the tension Is more high within the
audience showing many different shots such as long shots close up and many more camera
shots. Showing the emotion on the characters faces during different times in the scene
making the film look interesting to watch.
The opening scene in woman in black is very gloomy, and dark, there is also a lot of different
camera angles. They are making the audience feel nervous, and making the audience want
to know what is going to happen in the rest of 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 of the nursery rhyme, 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 theyve stared at
nothing, look at the window start walking and crushing their dolls on the way as they walk out
of the window.
When the girls stare at nothing we can tell that theres a ghost there, which tells the
audience that theres 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. Its 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.
The narrative of the film is easy to read for the audience as the film directors make it easy for
the audience to understand who the antagonist is, and that the public is going to be in
danger of it, so it tells us that the film is going to be about stopping it from doing that, so we
get the idea that everyone else is the protagonist.
The sounds of the bells chiming play an important part in the scene as its creates the tension
like a conventional horror film trailer the non-diegetic sound of the bell along with the editing
which cuts to a different shot every time the bells chime means this can easily build tension
. the bells later into the trailer get faster and builds tension within the audience leaving the
audience waiting for something to happen.
Editing during halfway through the trailer the tension is built up and there a fast sequence of
shots which has a cutting technique of changing when the chime of the bells ring. The nondiegetic music over the top of the fast paced scenes work well as the chime of the bells gets
quick and therefore the shots form the film become fast paced. This creates tensions and
builds the atmosphere for the audience therefore making the trailer mysterious and scary.
Mise-en-scene the doll portrays a disturbing scene as it adds to the emotion that the
audience would be going through within whilst watching the trailer .it shows an effect of
tension as the doll is just staring out into the open, this creates the atmosphere to show the
mystery within the scene

Media studies
Pixx Productions
Ayan Magudia
Close up was used to show the characters expressions, this was mainly used in the
beginning of the scene where the girls were playing with the dolls and when they had got up
to walk out of the window crushing the toys
Special effect: the use of shadows and contrasting light and dark places also at the end we
are show the woman in black.
List of camera angle, shots ,movement and position: close up , long shot , establishing shots
, zooming , tracking , pull back , slow and fast movement and also the whole room was lit up
to show a sunny day.