Analysis of Horror Clip

For our preliminary task, we chose to recreate the clap scene from the film, ‘The Conjuring’ as we thought that it would be easy to recreate and film in a house. The camera work in this clip is mainly handheld, which makes the overall scene very effective, as it helps to create suspense and prompt that something is about to happen. The lighting of the scene, in general, is quite dark as we can only see the natural light from outside, in the house. This helps to create a ghostly atmosphere and intrigue the audience, into assuming that something is likely to jump out and scare us. In the first scene of the clip, the use of a long shot makes us focus on the character, which enables us to think that something may happen to her. The character is shown to be blindfolded, which adds creates more anticipation, as we are aware that she is unable to see anything, and therefore, something is likely to occur. The next shot consists of a tracking shot, which follows the character as she enters the next room. The sounds we hear in the background is diegetic sound of a gong of a clock. This is effective as before we hear this sound, there is absolute silence. In the next shot, we see the woman walk into the room and having her back towards the cupboard. The mise-en-scene of this shot is very minimal, as this helps keep the audiences view of the character and the cupboard. Also, the lighting in the room isn't fairly bright, as there is only natural light coming in the room. The camera work in this shot starts its focus on the character and then, focuses on the cupboard. This is effective, as it makes clear what the director wants us to look at. A lot of shadows have also been used in this part of the scene, in order to create an uneasy atmosphere. We see a lot of medium and close-up shots as the woman walks towards the cupboard, as this makes the audience keep their focus on the character and add suspense. As the woman is walking, we hear a soundtrack in background, slowly fading into the scene. By the time she reaches the wardrobe, the volume of the soundtrack increases, in order to stimulate fear. Towards the end of the shot, a close-up is used in order to focus on the change of expression of the character as she looks quite happy. However,as she gets closer to the wardrobe, her expression changes as she lifts up the blindfold as seems shocked. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrFT6L4jxdI

This is the link of the original clip of the film.