Click here for a timeline of The Happening's opening credits.
All annotations are for images below the text describing it.
The very beggining of the film starts with the titles of the production companys:
The 20th Century Fox Intro is at the very start of the film and plays the well known accompanying tune. The rotation of the text on the cityscape background with the spotlights shining over the text making the name of the film cooperation seem valuable and commendble.
The 'uTv' motion pictures title starts with a hand dipping 3 fingers in blue green and red paint and wiping the fingers over a rotating glass paine to reveal the utv mtion pictures text. The black background has been used as the film following it is a horror, the affect would not be the same were it white.
The Spy Glass Entertainment title uses 3D rotation around a shiny gold telescope, and then zooms out and fades to black leaving this logo shown below. No sound is used in this title, building the suspense of whats to come.
General:
The opening footage to this film is broken intro with a straight cut from black with a fast fading in of non-diegetic music in a minor key to accompany the motion of the clouds. The image below shows what is a lapse of cloud movement, some of the shots have an uneasy feel to them as they are played in reverse to give a strange 'growing of clouds from nowhere' which foreshadows what is later happening in the film (the wind comes out of nothing and makes people commit themselves to suicide). Towards the start of the series of time-lapse shots the sky is a light blue colour, but as the opening credits advance the sky becomes closer to very deep blue / black suggesting evil, darker things are to come.
Whilst in the background the clouds are moving, the foregrounds presents text (fading in on every fourth beat of sound presenting a consistent pattern which juxtaposes the use of reversed cloud footage giving a irregular viewing experience used often in horrors) which are coloured and beveled in white to match the cloud coverage so on fades in and out the clouds reveal the text a gradient wipe even though it is just a simple transparency fade.
Sound:
The string score that starts on the straight cut from black opens with a strum of a harp and low pitch screeching in the background to fill the silence, as this continues the harp is replayed in an uneven, scales of the stringed instrument developing the unsteady pattern of the credits. The piano then begins the riff which is constantly played back making the first entry for the main actor of the film 'Mark Wahlberg' suggesting much is happening around this character (the 'start' of something). When the film title is shown on screen, another stringed instrument is playing a very similar riff which conjointly builds up the suspense and starts to develop the music into a build of tension as more instruments add to the composition. The piece composed by James Newton Howard has a slow rhythmic flow which as the credits progress with the darkening of sky also builds up with percussive instruments and sound effects such as wind whistling, all contribute to the crescendo of sound as the now faster moving clouds cut to black.
Camera:
The scene opens with a low angle tracking shot of a dog to then lift the camera up to a high angle (wide) establishing shot of central park from slightly above eye level. The camera reveals the tree-lined pathway through central park with a massive crowed of people filling the path. The camera shows an ordinary day, with no unusual things going on.
Sound:
The diegetic background ambient of people talking, city noises (such as car horns), wind blowing leaves and gentle start to a build up of synthetic violin notes. The long, dragged out notes slow the rhythm of the shot allowing us to concentrate on the style of film, allowing us to pick up subliminally all of the typical horror conventions. The dialogue we hear is what we would expect to hear on a busy day in central park, with children screaming, parents talking to the loudly and the laughs of people close to the camera's position.
This image below shows the camera movement from the frame above where tracking shot of the dog reveals the establishing shot of central park.
Camera
This very wide shot is a cut away which foreshadows what later happens in the film (the wind blowing the trees making individuals commit suicide). The ring of trees which surround the footage of the skyscrapers are a metaphorical image for the closing in of the trees on a subject. This cutaway shot is clearly lit with natural outdoor light and also shows the overcast skies above so in this case this could also be classed as a weather shot.
Sound
Throughout this shot the noise from the previous frame is continued but the sound of leaves swirling and wind picking up become a more primary sound to accompany the footage. The parallel and diegetic sound the wind is clearly accompanied by the visualisation on screen (by the exaggerated movement of the trees),
Camera:
A very slow zooming wide shot opens the action with these two characters on screen. The use of lighting is carefully thought about as the dark side of the frame (the right side) is the side that the 'possessed' girl is sitting and on the side with the most light is her friend who has nothing wrong with her. This use of darkness foreshadows what happens later on in the scene. The two subjects of the shot are the only people in the frame. Even though in only a few shots before we could see swarms of people wandering around the park, in this shot we see no one but the two girls subjected in the shot.
Sound:
The diegetic sound of wind whirling becomes an addition to strings as soon as the transition from the previous shot to the one shown below is made
Edit:
The straight cuts which link this shot to its predecessor and its successor add a more natural flow to the scene as there are no unrealistic transitions making the screen rotate or a linear wipe before changing shot. This adds realism and makes the cut seem like a blink - tying the scene up neatly.
rggmlggkl;gmgklmg
Camera:
Extreme close up shot of hair and hand grabbing a hair pin and pulling it out of her hair. The use of the extreme close up reduces the field of view of the viewer and limits their vision to the surroundings which furthermore disorientates the viewer as no other detail except for the hand and hair are clearly noticeable. The slow movement of the hand matches that of the very slight camera movement which adds to the realism in the shot which improves the viewing experience.
Sound:
As she reaches for the hair pin, a crescendo of sound as if the previous ambient background noise is 'swirling' into a mess of non-diagetic sound as screeches and double beats are used in uneven patterns (to give the effect of an unsteady heartbeat which makes the viewer feel uneasy and on-edge). This atmosphere is intensified by the use of high pitched strings and other inconsistently applied synthesized sound scores. Throughout this shot, there is no dialogue as the viewer's attention is focused on the subject of the shot and what they are doing, not what they are saying. This adds to the suspense of the moment as no clues are given away from speech as to what will happen next. As the transition between this and the next shot is in progress, a bicycle bell is rung twice (second ring in a lower pitch to the first as if it were: 'ding dong'). The almost bell chime-like sound foreshadows what later occurs in the film when the main actor approaches an abandoned house.
Edit:
The straight cuts which link this shot to its predecessor and its successor add a more natural flow to the scene as there are no unrealistic transitions making the screen rotate or a linear wipe before changing shot. This adds realism and makes the cut seem like a blink - tying the scene up neatly.
jflimlkmlksmlksmlkmfklms
No comments:
Post a Comment