Examples for inspiration - The Woman in Black

The House

 The Woman in Black is a 1983 novel by Susan Hill, which is another reason I felt it was appropriate to use this as an example, it is also not the first adaptation of this book brought to life. It has previously been made into a film and has been performed as a play. After seeing this film in 2012 which was directed by James Watkins, I realised that one of the aspects of it which frightened me the most was not only the woman herself (who is in fact terrifying) but also the adaptation of Eel Marsh house and the village it is near. The design of the abandoned house allows it to feel cold and eery, I think this has been achieved by dark, Victorian style of it. To be honest, if it wasn't for the attention to detail payed to the design of set, I wouldn't have found it half as scary. The long hallways, never ending stairs and the lack of light and care for the house allow it to feel like a very unwelcoming place. Even the outside lands around the house are off putting. It is surrounded by the marshes and the incoming tide, as well as being completely overgrown and neglected. You would have to be pretty stupid to go in there along to be honest.

 The Woman

Before seeing this adaptation I had begun reading the book and was actually really impressed and slightly relieved to see that her appearance almost matched her written description (in my opinion)
I realised that it was the smaller details which made her more terrifying to me. First of all the jet black 19th century dress accompanied by a black bonnet and face net do make her rather

intimidating. However aside from this, the thing that scared me more was way she was filmed when it came to camera angles and lighting. For example there is a scene near the start (image is shown on the left) where she is shown behind Arthur as she slowly turns to face him. However she the focus is not on her, so she is blurred and she is not on screen for more than a few seconds and in that time she does nothing more except turn on the spot in a very doll like manner. The audio to accompany this is silent until there is the faint sound of a distant female breath being drawn. Even when she is shown close up at the end (again shown on the left) it is frightening because it looks believable and not overdone. Her face is pale and covered with a net, and her eyes are made to look dark and sunk backwards slightly not her head, but not so much that it looks too exaggerated.

I actually found these more subtle encounters with the character more frightening than the instances where CGI was used to show the closeups of her screaming face - Although they did still scare me. But I'm still a sucker for the good old subtleties .

Audio

There is no doubt that the opening audio for this film is pretty creepy and I think it does a really good job at putting the audience in the right frame of mind for what is to come (which is what I will need to achieve in my title sequence). This piece of music used which was composed by Marco Edward Beltrami purely for the purpose of this film, is really effective because it is quite a subtle piece of music and definitely sent a chill or two down my spine, especially when it was accompanied by the first scene. The fact that it gradually builds up and ends on a high pitched overflowing of sound completely on its own definitely sets an uneasy mood for the rest of the film. So I think this is a piece of audio works extremely well. Even though I have not yet decided on specific audio, I still think this is important to take into account.

How this has influenced me..

The setting of this film, has encouraged me to think a lot about not just the characters I will incorporate into my title sequence but also the surrounding environment, and how this will reflect the ambience of the story in the time provided. Its got me thinking a lot about the colour schemes and possible camera angles I will use and how this will effect the viewers perspective. Re watching certain parts of this film has reminded me how effective and chilling I find the more subtle inputs and how I remember them more than the bigger, more computer generated moments, so this is something I will take into my own work.