Media Studies

Analysis
Mehak Hussain
The Woman in Black
For my analysis I decided to analyse the women in black; directed by James
Watkins and was released in 2012. The sequence of events and the portrayal of
the whole concept of the film portray clear codes and conventions of the horror
genre. The opening sequence of the film first shows a shot of three small girls
playing with dolls who then suddenly look up blank faced almost as if they were
being hypnotised, the score here deepens sounding more sinister to build more
tension for the audience, making them wonder what will happen next. The score
gradually builds becoming louder; in sync the three young girls step up onto the
ledge and jump at once out of the window. Straight away there is a scream, to
give the idea that people have become aware of the situation and react, this
helped to avoid showing the gruesome scene of a children dying.
Editing done in the trailer only added more affect to the scene
as it was slowed down in some scenes to help bring out and
emphasise an important or dramatic part, in this case when
the girls jumped out of the window.
The director uses diegetic and non-diegetic sounds
to enhance and the dramatic affects and
understanding of the slow-motion editing. This
would be important as the opening sequence does not
give away much about the movie; therefore the sound had to
be appropriate according to the horror genre.
The scene is set in a large Victorian nursery room
with different ornaments and objects placed around
the room; this helped to show the era the film is set in.
Mise-en-scene included 1800s setting and costumes of
characters; wearing long plain and dull coloured dresses.
In addition to this, there is also dull, grey and dark
lighting which helps to create the scene set in a small
town/village in the countryside.
In the opening sequenced there was a variety of
different shots and camera angles some of which were;
wide shots, long shots, tracking shots, extreme closeups and zooms. The different shots were used at
different points in the sequence. The extreme close-ups
were used to present emotion on the characters faces
and also to create silent tension for the audience when
the children are show pretend playing with the dolls
and also when they begin to stand up. The tracking and
zooms highlighted the key parts of a scene for example
when the girls walk toward the window; this indicates
to the audience that something bad was going to

Media Studies
Analysis
Mehak Hussain
happen, whereas, the wide and long shots helped to give the audience a better
understanding of the location/set.