At the end of the clip, you see the first bit of typography where a brief description is scrolled up the screen and then where the title is displayed. The brief description has been put there to give the audience a little inside knowledge so that they can understand the rest of the film without having to know the backstory before watching the film. Linking this to the cultural code from Barthes's semiotics theory, the audience have this external knowledge given to them so that they can now continue to watch the film and relate back to this information if they are required to. The font of this text is similar to that you would expect to come from a typewriter, and is coloured yellow. The typewriter effect connotes an old fashioned theme to the audience because typewriters have more or less been extinct for many years now. This old fashioned theme links to the idea of sprits and ghosts because they are widely associated with old people; death. Additionally, the colour yellow (colour of the text) is generally referenced to joy, happiness and energy because its link to sunshine. It is also said to produce a warming effect for the audience. All of these references are totally contrasted by different things: the scary opening scene shown before it, the content of the text, the link to the prequel film, the connotations produced from the different typography aspects, the non-diegetic sound playing in the background and much more. The title is also yellow, however is written in a different font. This font is extremely well known globally as The Conjuring logo and the high level of brand awareness will be recognised by the target audience as a result of their interest in the either the previous films or the horror film genre. Overall this film is foreshadowed to not have a nice, joyful and happy narrative from the use of typography in the opening scene alone.
At the very start of the opening clip you can see that the lighting is kept low in order to help make it appear darker, which gives the audience connotations of evil and sinister situations. I think that the directors and will want to have achieved this because the main narrative of the film is evil/sinister due to its relation to spirits and ghosts. A secondary interpretation of how this low lighting could be conceived by the audience is to show a clear differentiation between the lady's dream and real life after she wakes up.
Towards the end of the opening scene, the picture fades in to a colour that you would recreate using wet teabags in primary school, before fading to black. This colour gives connotations of old-fashioned times, which again relates to this idea of death and spirits. During the lady's dream the colours shown in the scene are very dull and on the darker end of the colour spectrum. The directors will have purposely done this to ensure the audience are aware of the scary and dark narrative that is awaiting. Everything that I have interpreted from the low lighting applies to this dark colour scheme. When the female character wakes up from her dream and in to real life, the colour scheme switches to a much brighter one, however dark colours still exist subtly. This could be conveyed as the lady and other characters being innocent and pure, however dark, evil spirits are still close by and ready to haunt. This bright colour scheme contrasts with the dark colour scheme shown in the first part of the opening scene, and this could portray how different the spiritual world is compared to the real world that we live in. The scene finishes with a fade to black, which reminds the audience of this dark and evil narrative that is about to start.
In the basement style environment seen in the first section of the opening scene, there are lots of props, giving off a cluttered look. This could be a code used by the directors to inform the audience that this area has not been lived in for a long time. This code engages the audience and makes them want to continue watching to see if the clutter relates to this connotation of an empty house and the possibility of ghosts and spirits. Props also appear when the dream ends and it becomes real life. These props include camera, microphones, etc. and have been included by the director to ensure the audience are aware this is a horror film; the props are a cultural code and are commonly known to be related to paranormal investigations.
The costumes and sense of fashion is definitely not modern nor current. The clothing worn by the main characters, who come across as paranormal investigators, seem to be rather old-fashioned (1970s fashion), and then the clothing worn by the four ghostly characters seem to be even older! The nun costume links to a historical time because they are less commonly seen in today's society when compared to previous eras.
As previously mentioned, the cluttered atmosphere comes across as the opening scene being set in an abandoned property. This abandoned house environment really emphasises on the scary narrative. When the lady wakes up from her dream the setting changes. The wallpaper and curtains have pattens that relate to a style from the 1970s, which act as a semantic code; the audience will be able to gain additional meaning to work out the setting of this film.
In this opening scene the body positioning of the four young looking, ghostly characters and the main female character is great because it allows for the audience to see all the characters at once and also understand how close/far away she is from them. This is shown in the first screenshot below. The next screenshot shows the female positioned next to a mirror, which is again great positioning. The body positioning of the female character in relation to the mirror shows the audience how close it is and how she is acting around it causes it to come across as scary. Her body language and the focus on the mirror makes it both a proairetic and hermeneutic code. It is a proairetic code because it builds tension for the audience due to the scary atmosphere being constructed around it, and it is a hermeneutic code the mirror is an enigma for the audience - they do not know what it is and it is being conveyed as something that will be important further along in the narrative.
The main female character is represented as brave and independent from the start. Her enthusiasm as she follows the little boy around the basement shows how she is there to do something that she finds interesting, and will not allow fear to get in her way. However as the opening moves forward the plot worsens and she eventually ends up in the arms of who I presume is her husband. This final image of her with her husband totally contrasts with the independent idea; she is relying on someone else for comfort and help. For the audience this will be confusing, forcing them to engage and want to find out how the lady has any relevance with the remainder of the narrative.
The ghostly figures are represented as strange and in turn quite frightening, especially the full black character we see towards the end of the dream. As a horror film, the directors have accomplished the aim of putting the audience on the edge of their seats.
The male character, presumably the lady's husband, is represented as more laid back, however still in a shocked state of mind. He doesn't talk much as his wife is telling him of the situation she has just witnessed, which highlights his laid back mentality. On the other hand, this could be interpreted as him being shocked and terrified for what he is inevitably going to come up against. The facial expressions on the face of the male character further backs up this point, as you can see from the screenshot below it connotes elements of fear and shock.
Editing is used very well in The Conjuring 2's opening scene because there is a good sense of continuity throughout and ideas/objects the director wants to stand out does. A great example of how this applies to this opening is where the four children are lined up and are staring straight at the female character. Suddenly there heads unnaturally move to face the mirror. This, for the audience, confirms this concept of them being spiritual and ghostly because an action as sudden as that is not natural to a human being. This effect has been created from the editing, which has been done to a great standard.
Continuity editing techniques have also been used. One example is the 180º rule, which is implemented at the end. As the two characters engage in conversation, the camera moves in front of the 180º line of where the two characters are. It doesn't go over that line because it would result in a reverse angle shot, where the character's positions would be reversed. Going against this rule is not encouraged because it becomes very difficult for the audience to follow, which in turn causes them to become disinterested and stop watching the film.
When looking through the opening scene, you can see that the most commonly used shot type is the medium shot. This means that the female character's body is kept in shot from the waist upwards. The director has done well here because although we do not have a full body shot (long shot), we are still able to understand how she is reacting to what is happening. Predominantly using medium shots also allows us to not get confused. With long shots we would probably see too much and start to lose focus on what is actually important in the narrative, and with close-up shots we would see too little and not be able to see everything we would need to to understand the narrative.
I have already included elements that relates to iconography, however I have not gone in to much detail about them. Iconography is what we expect to see attached to a certain genre. In The Conjuring 2's opening scene iconography is used to emphasise on the narrative. The light and dark, but mainly dark, used is iconography because it is something that, as an audience we expect to see in horror films. I have previously spoken about the connotations, etc. of light and dark in the paragraph dedicated to mise-en-scene. There is also the old fashioned style to the property and to the characters involved, which again is conventional in horror films due to its relation to ghosts and sprits.
I have also spoken about non-diegetic sound and how an eerie underlying sound is conventional to horror films. The dietetic sound however has not yet been discussed. These natural sounds are sudden and fast paced, for example when the cloth is pulled from over the mirror. This causes for tension to stay built up and to keep the audience on the edge of their seats and engaged. If the diegetic sounds where to be slower it wouldn't be as effective for the tension and keeping the audience engaged would be more difficult. Sound plays a big part in audience engagement and is therefore why both non-diegetic and diegetic sounds must be used effectively.
In conclusion, The Conjuring 2's opening scene has been directed well by the directors with an objective of keeping the audience engaged throughout the opening scene with the use of editing, mise-en-scene, sound, typography/titling, generic odes and conventions, shot types and representation.
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