Analysis of the title sequence of "Annabelle"

Macro elements:

The genre of this film’s opening is clearly horror. This can easily be noticed by the characters appearing in the first few seconds. Annabelle, the star of this film, is dressed up in flowery dress, which is a soft coloured and quite girly. She has girly ribbons in her hair to add to t

The his. On the contrary, Annabelle’s face is what shocks the viewers; her eyes have black eyeliner smudged all the way down to her bony cheeks; the rouge on her lips has been spread on half of her face. These makeup effects have been used to create a scary look, which is something people are not used to seeing in the outside world.

. The atmosphere is depressing. There aren’t any lights being showed in the title sequence, and the room where the title sequence is set is incredibly dark. The dark is used to emphasises on the fact that spooky creatures, ghosts or monsters may come out at that time, or, as most horror movies show this.

. The narrative (at this point), is showing that there is a doll, Annabelle, which is a “living” doll. She has a mind and movements of her own, which are able to frighten people.

. The key themes of the title sequence in Annabelle are: toys, darkness, doll, death and haunted.

The Micro elements:

. In this title sequence, the camera has been cleverly used to create a sense of a never ending darkness. It is used to emphasise on the fact that when Annabelle is “alive”,there is continuous darkness, and this darkness is a representation of doom/danger/evil. The camera screen shows the audience a circle, with the focus inside the circle (Annabelle), and the remainder of the rectangle screen has been blackened out. This makes the atmosphere seem darker than it actually is, creating that horror feel.

. There is a use of transition in this title sequence. The transition involves a simple straight cut, which fades to black every time a cut happens. After each cut and fading into black, there is something new being shown to the audience. This type of transition is used to create suspense for the audience, as the audience knows what they will expect from one of the cuts, however, they do not know exactly at what point something frightening may be shown.

. The mise-en-scene is used to make the audience feel more afraid. For example, the red ink used to imitate blood. Blood dripping in water creates more suspense and tension, because the blood spreads throughout the water. By doing this, it allows the audience to think that there will death involved in this film.

. The sound in the title sequence of Annabelle is something quite childish. It is informing the audience that the music is coming from Annabelle’s music box therefore Annabelle is a very young girl. The sound of a music box is purposefully added, which is something spooky because a music box cannot start playing by itself, especially not by a doll.