Textual Analysis of 'Suspiria' 1977

The film 'Suspiria' came to my attention when i did some research through horror music. The non-diegetic use of the voice over is in tandem with a percussionist, which gives it the dream like effect and the music is a visage to the narrative format which creates a fairytale facade to this film. The odd framing choices can be simultaneously linked with the constant lullaby we hear. The camera is clearly decending from a crane which gives the audience a sense of authority because of the posision the camera is in, to give them the sense of freedom and space due to the smooth pan across the screen. However the framing of the people on the screen is some what awkward due to the really high cutoff which is below their shoulders.

Textual Analysis of Candyman Opening Titles. Main Task

'Candyman' is a 1992 horror film which is based on the idea of re-constituted urbanlegends and their realization in a contemporary reality.
The of the first things that cuaght my eye about the opening titles was the use of one continuous shot. Instead of using quick cuts and fades to empathise tension, the films reality is of the constant pace of the tracking of the camera
is a reasonable device to build its own tension through the constant tracking and being coupled with a dramatic change.

The icongraphy of the slow car moving is suggested although we are not even in a car the longvity of the grey mass which is laid out in front of us is very duanting, maybe more so to being an English audience due to the volume of the road presented. Suggestivly and subconsciously a road will represent a journey taken. The journey the audience are forced along in 'Candyman' is elegant and undeniably a metaphor for the effortless motion and strength of a character we are going to be introduced to. The tunnel, brige and water bellow and the complexity of the road junction, creat imagery of a tunnel with illumination of learning something
the fall form a tunnel, the bridge and its water bellow and the complex road junctions. The imagery of a tunnel is the illumination in learning something but in compensative use with the water's meaning of death and the imagery of a heart of cardio-vascular system the ideas of flesh and being form.

Something that caught my eye was the use of sound which can be presumed to be diagetic or non diegetic. There is a male voice which can be heard that could correspond to a sound inside a vehical or maybe an additional exterior sound to the scene. From teh scene we have established there are no characters so far being introsuced so it should be taken as a non-diegetic sound coupled with music. We then are presented with a combination of the stactic radio and gothic cathedral-esque eitha with a chior or organ. This gives it a dark era which is relative to the folkore premise and the story like realism of the film.

The Cursed Main Task

The Cursed | Upload Music


After a lot deliberation John decided that the other music in which he composed was too drama based, so he decided on chaninging the structure and re-wrote the music to a completley different song. We are all now very pleased with the new piece and how it fits effeciantly with our opening title sequence.

Samara Song - The Ring Main Task

Contemporary horror films which have inspired myself and my group members is 'The Ring'. The main theme in the film is sung by a small child, who actually is a dead girl. John who composed our music thought that the happy use of lyrics in juxtaposition to the atonal melody which then gradually descends, and is recapitulated in a circular fashion provoked him into wanting to use the similar technique, however to traslate it onto the the instrumentation and its playing. I think John thought critically and efficiantly. He produced an amazing piece and the inspiration he recieved from 'The Ring' i think helped and motivated him very much.
In our piece there are a lot of rise and fall intonations which reflect and compliment our music a lot. John though it would be best to included a female vocal to reflect our premise, but however using that would seem as a predictable device.

Our music Main Task

Cursed | Upload Music

This is the music which John composed for our opening title sequence. After comparing the footage to a gothic horror film like that of Hammer Productions he decided that more drama was needed in our soundtrack. 'The Horror of Dracular' has a full orchestural score and also 'The phantom of the Opera'. We thought the use of strings and the voice was truly revalent and also created a lucious cocophony on dissonance untouched in John's original composition. Although we though there is no real use of dissonance in these examples, the idea is more contemporary and the mixed frequencies produced, created a scream like timbre to all the instruments.

Final Post Main Task

We have now completely finished our main task, which was to make an opening title sequence. The music goes well with our piece and we are all very satisfied! As ive posted the music certainly does compliment the footage that we have capured and has given it the theme and feel we wanted to achieve. The footage is effective and to the satisfaction we required our piece to be like. 'The Cursed' is chilling and ghostly, which represents her past and I feel the opening title sequence in which we have created significantly proves that.

Editing progress - Final day of our Main Task

We have spent hours this morning editing to which we can be satisfied with to a very high standard. The music will be inserted tonight by John as the music in which he has composed is on his computer at home. We will then have the final piece tomorrow by 4 o clock.

Analysis of the music Main Task

The music which we will be using for our opening title sequence was composed by John Vallis. The music is very atmosperic and ambient which fits with the ghostly and disturbing images in our film. The texture of the piece creates the feeling of loneliness ans isolation as it's very thin and sparse. The sound which is panned which creates and adds depth to the stereo field and would give the audience a feel of an overwhelming desolate landscape. The piece is also full of repetetive motifs which also gives the audience an uncomfortable and droning sense of impending doom. The use of repetition is heavily influenced by Steve Reich's minimalist compositions.
The steve Reich influence can also be hard in the use of odd time signatures and dissonance. Both these things make the piece uncomfortable to listen to and therefore make the piece perfect for a psychological horror film. This is due to odd time signatures dont sound natural of which are hard to follow, this leaves the audience with a sense of consusuion. The use of dissonance also sounds disturbing and can create a subtle inferrence of a human scream. This should slowly cause a sense of fear and discomfort to wash over the audience.

Day Three of filming Main Task

On the third day of filming we filmed all the shots that we wanted of the melting doll. The intention of these shots is to represent the degregation of innocence in the film. The device we used to melt the doll was a heat gun, it became very hot so we used a well ventilated area in order to successfully disfigure the doll. We taped the dolls mouth and hands to signify the sense of inprisionment and helpnessness, in which this is a reaccuring theme in our film. The burning of the rose has a strong and vivid sence of harm and corruption and the strong oxymoronic connotations with the juxtaposition of the beauty that contrasts with the harshness and destructive properties of fire. This would suggest a theme of lost beauty and this is metaphorical for how the characters once ideal life quickly descends into chaos. From melting the rose we successfully portrayed the images of a burning rose gradually getting more disfigured, which lead to the audience's perception of the characters sanity at certain points in the film.

Title order Main Task

We researched on youtube the standard structure of an opening title sequence, which helped and guided us for our opening title sequence - the standard order is

Prince Studios Presents
a Vallis Williams production
Sophie Thomas in
The Cursed
Phillip moore, Michael Jones, Stuart Cocker
Casting by - Penelope Hurst
Music by - John Vallis
Cinematographer - Stacy Williams
Art Director - Helen Austin
Editor - Liam Greenfield
Production Designer - Jane Matthews
Screenplay by - Micheal Gregory
Produced by - Sam james
Executive Producer - Jane Phillips-Smythe
Directed by - Simon Snow


This is a clip of Catch me if you can - directed by Stephen Spielburge. This shows the standard title sequence opening credits should have.

Continuing the editing process Main Task

We have now come to the decision of changing our title names (e.g. Sophie Thomas) from a flashing image to a still image. We think this is more effective and professional.

Editing progress Main Task

We are now over half way through our editing process. We've spent a lot of time whilst editing because we did'nt want our piece to look like a music video. Our aim is for an ambient, distressed look, which I think we are achievig. We recoreded in night vision, as we wanted to emphasise the ambient and grainy effect of our opening title sequence.

Logged Posts- DAY TWO

3.35-3.45: PAN 1 YES
3.45-4.03: PAN 2 YES
4.03-4.09: PYLON SHOT NO
4.09-4.51: WALKING TO CAMERA YES
4.51-5.01: BACKWARDS WALKING YES
5.01-5.11: EMPTY SWING YES
5.11-5.35: SOPHIE SWING YES
5.35- 5.47: SOPHIE TREE YES

Logged Shots- DAY ONE

1.24-1.59: OTS MIRROR SHOT YES
2.00-2.12: OTS MIRROR SHOT LIPSTICK YES
2.12-2.20: OTS MIRROR SHOT YES
2.22-2.32: CU MIRROR SHOT YES
2.32-2.44: CU MIRROR SHOT YES
2.44-2.51: MIRROR SHOT NO
2.51-3.16: MIRROR SHOT YES
3.16:3.20: MIRROR SHOT MAYBE
3.20-3.25 HAND MIRROR SHOT NO
3.25-3.35: HAND MIRROR SHOT YES
3.35-3.49: CU OF EYE YES
3.49-4.06: BED SHOT MAYBE
4.06-4.19: SIDE OF BED NO
4.19-4.34: BED POLE YES
4.34-4.47: KNEELING SHOT NO
4.47-5.03: CU OF EYES YES
5.03-5.21: CU OF FACE YES
5.21- 5.50: CU OF FACE YES

Horror Opening Main Task

Here is a really good example of a modern british horror opening:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peggLQ1fLg8

In this clip i found it to be very unsettling which is also the theme we would want when creating our own horror opening sequence.......TBC