OPENING SCENE:
Synopsis:
‘The Conjuring is a
2013 American supernatural horror film directed by James Wan and written by
Chad Hayes and Carey Hayes. The film is the first instalment in The Conjuring
film series. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga star as Ed and Lorraine Warren,
paranormal investigators and authors associated with prominent cases of
haunting. Their reports inspired The Amityville Horror. The Warrens come to the
assistance of the Perron family (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor), who are
experiencing increasingly disturbing events in their farmhouse in Rhode Island
in 1971.
The Conjuring was
released in the United States and Canada on July 19, 2013, and in the United
Kingdom and India on August 6, 2013. The film received positive reviews from
critics and grossed over $318 million worldwide from its $20 million budget,
making it one of the highest-grossing horror films of all time. A sequel, The
Conjuring 2, was released on June 10, 2016, also to critical and commercial
success.’
Producers: Ed
Warren:
‘Development began
over 20 years prior when Ed Warren played a tape of Lorraine's original interview
with Carolyn Perron for producer Tony DeRosa-Grund. DeRosa-Grund made a
recording of Warren playing back the tape and of their subsequent discussion.
At the end of the tape, Warren said to DeRosa-Grund: "If we can't make
this into a film I don't know what we can." DeRosa-Grund then described his
vision of the film for Ed.
DeRosa-Grund wrote
the original treatment and titled the project The Conjuring. For nearly 14
years, he tried to get the movie made without any success. He landed a deal to
make the movie at Gold Circle Films, the production company behind The Haunting
in Connecticut, but a contract could not be finalized and the deal was
dropped.’
Distributors – Warner bros:
‘Warner Bros. and New
Line Cinema initially intended to release The Conjuring in early 2013, but
decided on a summer release date after gaining a positive reception from test
audiences. The film was ultimately released on July 19 in North America, and in
the United Kingdom and in India on August 2. Because of this, it is one of the
first horror films to receive a wide release in the United States during the
months of June or July since 2006's The Omen. A trailer and a clip from the
film were shown at the 2012 New York Comic Con. In March 2013, the film was
given an R-rating by the MPAA for being what Wan described as "too adult. When
we sent it [to the MPAA], they gave us the R-rating," said executive
producer Walter Hamada. "When we asked them why, they basically said,
'It's just so scary. [There are] no specific scenes or tone you could take out
to get it PG-13.’
The world premiere
took place June 6, 2013, at the closing night of the first edition of Nocturne:
Madrid International Fantastic Film Festival. This was followed by two
screenings of the film at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 21 that also
featured a Q&A segment with director James Wan. A red-carpet premiere was
then held for the film on July 15, 2013 at Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles.
Distributions of note include:
'Marketing
In December 2015, Entertainment Weekly released the first image from the film, introducing the character portrayed by Madison Wolfe. On January 6, 2016, James Wan posted a teaser clip to his social media accounts revealing that the first official trailer would debut the following day Also on January 6, Yahoo! Movies exclusively released two stills from the film, featuring Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson.[n March 26, 2016, Wan premiered the full-length trailer at WonderCon. In the weeks leading up to the film's premiere, TV spots began airing. This was followed by a featurette titled Strange Happenings in Enfield, in which the Hodgson sisters and Lorraine Warren discuss their experiences with the case.[ Two weeks prior to The Conjuring 2's premiere, fans were given the opportunity to take a 360-degree virtual reality tour of the film's Enfield house setting. Following that, another featurette was released, titled Audio Recordings, which featured a recording of the demon that inspired the film.
Theatrical release
The Conjuring 2 was originally scheduled to be released on October 23, 2015,but in October 2014, Warner Bros. pulled the film from the schedule and set the film for an unspecified 2016 release date.[43] In November 2014, the film was set a release date for June 10, 2016. The Conjuring 2 had its red carpet world premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre on June 7, 2016, as part of the Los Angeles Film Festival's program, three days prior to its wide release.
On June 17, 2016, a 65-year-old man died of a heart attack while watching the film at a cinema in Tiruvannamalai, India.
Home media
The Conjuring 2 was released as a digital download on August 30, 2016, and on DVD and Blu-ray on September 13, 2016.Bonus features include behind the scenes footage, featurettes, and deleted scenes.'
Timeline:
0:00 - 0:07 The scene starts by introducing us to the first character in the film (women) who we can hear breathing emphasizing that she is scared and lost by her facial expressions. There are different shots used to also base the setting which we can see as the basement. There is low key lighting so everything is quite dark.
0:07-0:10 We are shown the Christian cross and the bible along with a statue. This tells the viewers that the house is owned by Christian believers.
0:10- 0:12 There is a child that comes out and runs across the basement. There is non diegetic sound of the child laughing.
0:12 -0:23 The camera starts to move faster and the women looking scared starts to look around her for the child she just heard, again there are close up shots and high angle shots used here.
0:23-0:28 As the woman walks passed and turns around a wipe transition is used to form 4 children stood shoulder to shoulder in with blood on their clothes. They are all staring at the same thing and there eyes look as if they are being possessed.
0:28- 0:29 Another wipe transition is used to show the children's heads turning the same direction staring at the mirror in the distance. They all do it in sync as if they are being controlled.
0:29-0:36 The women then turns her head to see what the children are staring at and realizes they are looking straight at the mirror.
0:36- 0:41 The women looks confused as to why the children were staring at the mirror and when she looks back at them, they have disappeared which gives us signs that something bad is about to happen to the women.
0:41- 0:46 We can hear the women breathing heavily, emphasizing that she is scared and then goes to check out the mirror because she is curious to know why the children were staring at it. She goes pull the cloth on the mirror to be shown her reflection by herself in the dark basement.
0:46- 1:00 The women looks away from the mirror and suddenly hears someone behind her. When she looks back in the mirror she sees a dark figure walk up behind her. the figure is dressed in all black an their face is not yet shown. It questions the viewers as to who it could be.
1:00-1:02 The women turns around to find that the black figure is not there but when she turns back to her reflection in the mirror, the black figure is shown more closer to the women and is more clear to the viewers as a Nun. The women becomes panicked and stares at the nun.
1:02- 1:05 The women again repeats this and looks the other way to see that the nun isn't behind her and then realizes that it is in the mirror.
1:05-1:10 This is when she looks back at the mirror and this is when a jump scare occurs when the nun is right in front of her face and sound gets louder when the nun forces the women's hands around her neck pushing her to the other side of the basement. There is a close up here that shows the women being dragged across the other side of the room whilst possessed into strangling herself.
1:10 - 1:13 At this point the women is shocked about what just happened to here and stares at her hands with confusion and heavy breathing.
1:13- 1:15 is when the pile of chairs in the distant corner to the women all comes down at once with a figure behind it all staring straight into the women's eyes. again we cant tell why this is because the lighting is so dark but we know its not the nun because this time they are wearing clothing such as jeans and a jumper.
1:15-1:19 shows the unknown figure being killed with blood coming out of their body.
1:19-1:21 The scene f the basement comes clear to us that the women was dreaming when it comes back into reality where she is crying and the lighting here has now changed. She is now in high key lighting.
1:21 - 1:31 We can now see that she is sat around a table with candles and a camera. Curtains are shown to be pulled back so the light comes in changing to high key lighting. The women is screaming and seems distressed after what she had just seen. Her husband on the right is trying to comfort her so this shows that they are up to something and they are investigating with the camera surrounding.
1:31 - 1:41 The women holds onto her husband because she is scared and at this point she is still in tears, which adds suspense as the viewers want to know what is going on and why.
1:41 - 2:00 There is dialogue used where the women says 'this is as close as hell as I'm ever going to get'. This questions viewers as to why she said that and what the nun wanted to d with her as well as her being shown a dark figure being killed. it all added suspense as the storyline is not given way one bit which makes viewers want to carry on watching.
Film Analysis:
Setting:
The film is set in a real location. It is in a house in Enfield, London. The house is haunted and is on a road with many other houses beside it. The reason for this is because its based on a real story of the Enfield Poltergeist. An establishing shot I used to set the opening scene which is based in the basement of the house, creating the horror theme as basements are supposed to be scary and dark. The basement is shown to be filled with old furniture covered in blankets and religious ornaments such as the statue of Jesus which makes the viewers aware that the family that live there are religious (Christians). Even though the scene does not give a lot way about the plot, it introduces us to many characters. However, the set after the women comes out of her 'nightmare', is set in a dining room where there are characters sat around a table with candles surrounding them emphasizing the time period it was filmed. Sat around the table, was the women and what looked to be like her husband comforting her when she was upset.
Lighting:
There is Low key lighting used for the opening scene. This connotes a dark and gloomy sense, but the lighting changes halfway through the scene where it becomes high key lighting as the curtains are opened and lights are switched on showing the twist in the film and that the women was just dreaming. The lighting set the scene and made it easier to understand what was going on. The lowkey lighting appears first in the women's dream when she is down in the basement which goes to show that she was having a nightmare. Lighting is important in this opening scene because it determines the difference between the women's nightmare and real life when she comes out of it. If the lighting stayed low the whole way through, viewers would get confused as to what just happened.
Sound:
Sound:
There is a lot of different sound used in the opening scene making it more interesting and as well scary. Firstly we can hear the women's fast breathing, to show she is scared. There is the use of ambient sound not knowing what's going on around, which builds tension of the music that gradually started to speed up. During the scene there is also sound of children laugh coming from different directions, again building u the tension as we don't know what is going to happen. As the music becomes louder and faster it ends with a big bang which is when the nun in the scene grabs the women by her neck and that is when her dream ends and she comes back into reality crying and screaming. This leaves us on a cliff hanger as to why she was having a bad nightmare. The ambient
sound then fades and the dialogue is introduced. The sound of the child laughing whilst running across the camera also frightens viewers as they were not expecting a child to come running out and the laugh almost sounds creepy and possessed.
Shots, Transitions and Camera Movements:
In the film opening, there are low angle shots used to show the Nun (Evil) importance in the film along with it being more powerful than the women. There are also over the shoulder shots used to show what the women is seeing from her perspective. there are quick cut transitions to make the scene flow easily and quickly because so much is happening and the cut transition adds the effect of this. There are close ups of the women's face to show her emotions, and long shots to set the scene and where it is. There is an establishing shot used to set the scene of the basement at the beginning.
Costumes:
Credits/typography used:
The title of the film is used at the end of the opening scene. Its bold and stands out and takes up the whole screen. This links to the Horror theme because its made to look scary and stand out. However unlike Sinister the font is not written and does not take up the whole screen but still manages to look creepy.
Adam: ' The film opening is really good because its very entertaining and is more exciting than thought it would be. I like the fact that it goes straight into the jump scenes as well'
Ellie: ' I like the way the film opening started and went straight into the jump scares and tension giving me a feeling that it was going to get scarier along the way'
Katy: ' The opening scene is more terrifying than I imagined it to be which is good because it really does relate back to the genre of horror'
Helena: ' The opening scene got me on the edge of my seat and I liked how we were already introduced to the evil character and how it went straight into the movie synopsis.
What I have learnt:
I have learnt that when analysing this film, the setting is very crucial and important when emphasising the genre of the film. The audience rely on the setting of the film to understand what is going on, for example, the scene in the dark basement emphasised the theme of horror.
What I have learnt:
I have learnt that when analysing this film, the setting is very crucial and important when emphasising the genre of the film. The audience rely on the setting of the film to understand what is going on, for example, the scene in the dark basement emphasised the theme of horror.
