Textual Analysis - The Woman In Black

Woman In Black Film Opening - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z_XetLZlqc&t=2
The film Woman in Black (2012) is a film of the Horror/Fantasy genre and was Directed by James Watkins and Written by Susan Hill. The film's main protagonist is Daniel Radcliffe.

Storyline (IMDB)
In London, solicitor Arthur Kipps still grieves the death of his beloved wife Stella on the delivery of their son Joseph four years ago. His employer gives him a last chance to keep his job, and he is assigned to travel to the remote village of Cryphin Gifford to examine the documentation of the Eel Marsh House that belonged to the recently deceased Mrs Drablow. Arthur befriends Daily on the train and the man offers a ride to him to the Gifford Arms inn. Arthur has a cold reception and the owner of the inn tells that he did not receive the request of reservation and there is no available room. The next morning, Arthur meets solicitor Jerome who advises him to return to London. However, Arthur goes to the isolated manor and soon he finds that Eel Marsh House is haunted by the vengeful ghost of a woman dressed in black. He also learns that the woman lost her son drowned in the marsh and she seeks revenge, taking the children of the scared locals.

Aims and Objectives of Film Openings
There are many purposes of a film opening. They are very similar to film trailers however there are also many differences. The main purposes are to set the scene of the film, the genre and also gives information to the audience about actors. The opening also has to entertain and pull in the audience otherwise they will get bored and want to stop watching. The opening will either show a scene from the plot that is based in the past to give the audience a bit of historical knowledge of the film. Or a scene from the future to give them something to watch out for within the film and also gives an enigma to the film as it will leave the audience asking questions on how the story gets to where is it. 

The opening scenes of The Woman in Black include a lot of audio ranging from both diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, a victorian style house with three young girls and a lot of creepy props ranging from everyday furniture to children's toys. The overall effect of this opening scene is very eerie and mysterious. This is due to specific usage of camera angles and also through the acting. Just like any other form of media entertainment, the main purpose of this film is to entertain and allow for the audience to escape from reality. The opening scene not only entertains but also entices the audience to carry on watching as there is a clear enigma within the film. This links to, similar to the Insidious opening scene, Barthe's Enigma Theory. 

The camerawork within the opening of The Women in Black includes a large range of camera angles and shots to capture the mise-en-scene of the film. There are a lot of different shots used to capture many different things about the film. For example, The time it's set in and the locations. Many different shots were used, such as long shots, to establish the location of the film which is a victorian styled mansion. We know this because of the mise-en-scene itself with the old windows and curtains shown within long shots. There are also close-up shots showing props and costumes which again establish the era of when this film is set. These close-up shots show old china tea sets and dated toy dolls. Medium shots show a group of three young girls all dressed in dated white dresses. These costumes seem to be in, again, the Victorian style. The use of these shots establish the setting of the film and also the era in which the film is set. There is a use of shot reverse shots to show that all of the girls are playing together happily. However, a use of a single long shot that is positioned in bird's eye view changes this happy atmosphere. The use of this bird's eye long shot makes the three girls seem venerable, small and powerless which then creates tension and suspense within the audience. The next sequence of shots reveals an eye-line match with the three girls looking out of frame to a window, which is then shown to the audience in the next shot. This is when Barthe's Enigma Theory becomes present within the opening. The audience will start to wonder why the three girls abruptly stopped playing and looked towards the window. This creates ominous tension within the atmosphere which will tell the audience something is wrong may leave them feeling uneasy. The next long shot of the girls shows them getting up from the ground in synchronisation. They then begin to walk towards the window. Furthermore, close-up shots are shown. Within these shots, we can see the props shown before being dropped and trampled over as the girls eerily walk towards the window. More long shots are shown as the girls all open the three windows together and simultaneously jump out. What's revealed in these shots creates an atmosphere of fear and also creates an enigma. Because of this, the audience would want to continue watching to find out why the girls jumped out of the windows. They also hint towards what conventions are featured within the film as it seems that the girls have been possessed in some way or forced to jump out of the windows.

I only analysed the camerawork of The Woman In Black as Insidious was not varied in shot types and we wanted to have more ideas about what kind of shot types were used in horror films. From this analysis of Camerawork, we took the following shot types and intend to use these in the main film; Close-Up shots and Establishing shots that show location.
The reason that I did not analyse the Mise-En-Scene, Editing and Sound for The Woman In Black was because, as a group, we already decided that our main influence was Insidious and did not want to stray from our original influence.