H.P - Technical Analysis - The Woman in Black (Watkins, 2012)

Shot By Shot Analysis

Shot Duration	Camera distance, angle and movement	Mise-en-scene	Sound
00:00-00:06		Momentum Pictures Logo	Synth sound effect
00:06-00:10		Black screen	Silence
00:10-00:18		Hammer Logo	Silence
00:18-00:27		UK Film Council logo	Silence
00:27-00:37		Black screen	Silence
00:37-00:47	Just below eye height, Establishing shot, Mid-shot. Shallow focus on cups	Two ornate china cups on a small table. A teapot moves between them in a pouring motion but nothing is poured.	Quiet, eerie background synths. Echoing clangs of the china
00:47-00:49	Just below eye height. Close up on doll. Shallow focus.	An old Victorian looking china doll. A cup is brought to its mouth; pretend drinking, taken away again.	Quiet, eerie background synths continue. A piano/xylophone joins
00:49-00:52	Just below eye height. Close up on doll. Shallow focus.	Another old Victorian looking china doll. Opposite side. A cup is brought to its mouth; pretend drinking, taken away again.	Quiet, eerie background synths and music continue
00:52-00:57	Mid-shot. Low angle.	Three young girls sitting on floor playing with dolls. Dark, grungy Victorian room. Various toys on the floor and a pram.	Quiet, eerie background synths and music continue
00:57-01:00	Just below eye height. Close up on doll. Shallow focus.	Doll in mid-ground having hair brushed. Foreground another doll out of focus.	Quiet, eerie background synths and music continue
01:00-01:02	Just below eye height. Close up on doll. Shallow focus.	Doll being tucked into a small bed	Quiet, eerie background synths and music continue
01:02-01:04	Eye height. Two shot, mid-shot.	Two girls smiling and pretending to pour the tea.	Quiet, eerie background synths and music continue
01:04-01:06	Eye height. Mid-shot	Third girl also smiling, placing a cup down out of frame.	Quiet, eerie background synths and music continue
01:06-01:08	Low angle. Mid-shot.	The tea set and the three girls sitting around it. Only the bottom halves of the girls can be seen.	Quiet, eerie background synths and music continue
01:08-01:16	Adult eye height. Long-shot.	Girls can be seen in the bottom middle of the frame. The rest of the room is revealed. The three girls all stop what they are doing and turn to stare at a point just out of frame towards the camera.	Starts with a synth stinger. Background music becomes more uneasy sounding, more echoes and a different tone. A breathy, wind sound effect can also be heard.
01:16-01:19	Low angle. Mid-shot.	The girls all turn to look out of frame to the left, towards the windows.	More uneasy sounding music continues.
01:19-01:21	Mid shot. Dolly zoom in on windows.	Three windows centre frame. Zooming in on them. Windows are dirty, can’t really see through them.	A slight boom in the music at the start of the shot. Uneasy sounding music continues.
01:21-01:22	Low angle. Mid-shot.	The girls begin to rise out of frame as they slowly stand up, still watching the window.	Uneasy sounding music continues.
01:22-01:23	Low angle. Previous shot but zoomed. Medium close up.	Zoomed in from previous shot. Two girls still rising to stand.	Uneasy sounding music continues.
01:23-01:25	Low angle. Medium close up. Shallow focus.	The bottom of one of the girl’s dress and her feet as she stands up.	Uneasy sounding music continues.
1:25-1:27	Medium close up. Shallow focus. Hip height.	The same girl’s side as she stands. Her hand holding a china cup can be seen. She drops it out of frame.	Uneasy sounding music continues.
01:27-01:28	Low angle. Medium close up. Shallow focus.	The same girl’s shoes again. The cup falls into frame and smashes on the rug. The girl begins to turn and she steps over the shattered cup.	Clash of the cup smashing. Uneasy sounding music continues.
01:28-01:30	Low angle. Medium close up. Shallow focus.	China doll lying on floor. Two girl’s feet can be seen stepping over it.	Uneasy sounding music continues.
01:30-01:31	Low angle. Close up. Shallow focus.	Close up on China teapot, girl steps on it and crushes it.	Crash of teacup smashing. Uneasy sounding music continues.
01:31-01:34	Low angle. Medium close up. Shallow focus.	China doll on floor. Girl steps on it and smashes its head.	Echoing smash of doll’s head. Uneasy sounding music continues.
01:34-01:39	Eye height. Medium long shot. Dolly tracking backwards.	All three girls centre frame walking towards the camera. Frame of window appears at the sides of the shot as the camera tracks backwards. The girls go up a step and their heads go out of frame.	Uneasy sounding music continues.
01:39-01:43	Eye height. Medium long shot. Slow pan up as girls step up.	The girls step up a step in sync towards the three open windows centre frame. In sync they reach for the handles.	Uneasy sounding music continues.
01:43-01:46	Eye height. Medium close up.	A girl’s hand reaches for the window handle in shot, and pulls it downwards, unlocking the window. The girl’s arm can be seen pushing the window open by the handle.	Echoing clicks of the window being opened. Uneasy sounding music continues.
01:46-01:58	Eye height. Medium long shot. Same as shot previous to last. Slow dolly zoom backwards.	Three girls at windows. All step up onto the window frames in sync. They all jump forward out the windows.	Uneasy music continues then comes to a peak as they jump with a build-up of sound. Once they have jumped there are the screams of a woman.
01:58-02:01	Low angle. Close up, shallow focus. Slow zooming outwards.	The face of one of the china dolls.	The scream continues into “My babies”. A quiet humming or whirring of sound continues.
02:01-02:05	Long shot of room. Dolly zooming backwards slowly.	The room with the open windows can be seen. In the far right of the frame the very side of a figure in a black veil is revealed in the foreground by the zoom. Fades to white clouds.	Humming of sound continues. Another shriek from the woman.

Analysis of Findings

• None of the shots feature the protagonist of the film, only the three first victims and a glimpse of the antagonist.
• There was medium speed cutting rate, with each shot being around 2-3 seconds on average. There were some exceptions at key points in sequence, such as the shot where the girls turn to see the antagonist out of frame and the shot where they jump out of the windows. The cutting rate remains pretty much constant throughout the sequence.
• The camera was still in almost every shot, and the in shots with camera movement this movement was very slow. This kept a slow, steady pace that reflected the chimes of the background music.
• There were many cases where the framing was used to emphasise the similarities of the three girls. Many shots included all three of them at an equal spacing across the screen. Of particular interest was the shot of the three girls at the three windows. Their silhouettes against the light was jarring and contributed to the creepy, tense atmosphere.
• All the cuts were regular snapping cut, with the exception of the start and end of the filmed section of this sequence, where a fade was used in both cases. This contributed to the slow, soft feel of the sequence, gradually introducing and moving on from the scene.

I believe this sequence has been incredibly useful to analyse because its style is incredibly similar to the style we are hoping to create for our own opening. I will be taking elements from this into account when planning our own shots, significantly the low cutting rate, dark grimy colours and strong visual imagery (such as the three children at the three windows).