Text analysis - Insidious - Anthony Pitts

Order and Duration of Titles

'In association with Stage 6 Films' - 0.00-0.03

'An Alliance Films, and Im Global Presentation, of A Haunted Movies Production' - 0.03-0.09

'A James Wan Film' (Director) - 0.17-0.28

'Insidious ' - 1.22-1.27

'Patrick Wilson' (Actor) - 1.32-1.36

'Rose Byrne' - 1.39-1.44

'Line Shaye' - 1.46-1.50

'Ty Simpkins' - 1.52-1.57

'And Barbara Hershey' - 2.00-2.04

'Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson' - 2.07-2.10

'Andrew Astor, Joseph Bishara' - 2.13-2.16

'Casting by Annie McCarthy and Kellie Gesell' - 2.19-2.23

'Costume by Kristin M.Burke' - 2.26-2.30

'Music by Joseph Bishara' - 2.32-2.37

'Edited by James Wan, Kirk Morri' - 2.39-2.44

'Production Designer Aaron Sims' - 2.46-2.50

'Director of Photography John R.Leonetti ASC, David M.Brewer' - 2.52-2.56

'Line Producer Jeanette Volturno-Brill' - 2.58-3.03

'Co-Produced by John R.Leonetti, Aaron Sims' - 3.05-3.10

'Executive Producer Brian Kavanaugh-Jones' - 3.12-3.17

'Produced by Jason Blum, Steven Schneider and Oren Peli' - 3.20-3.25

'Written by Leigh Whannell' - 3.27-3.31

'Directed by James Wan' 3.34-3.42

 

Typography

The red text fades to white and then fades out in a way that looks like smoke. And the fact that the font is red coincides with the theme of horror, as it creates connotations of blood and death, which is a common feature of the horror genre.

The actual film title 'Insidious' is in red, like the opening credits, but is in a different font, which is thicker and fills the frame. This means that the audience focus more or less completely on the title, so the sinister look and colour of the typography adds to the theme of horror created through use of non-diegetic music.

Each title fades out letter-by-letter, in a seemingly random order. This adds to the sense of mystery and creates more tension that a simple title sequence would. So the transition of the titles add to the sense of gore and horror that is created by the music and font colour.

During the opening scene of 'Insidious', an object is shown, which takes up a lot of the frame. But next to each object there is always a dark space, in which the titles appear. Even though the titles do not take up a lot of space, the red text stands out against the black background, due to the colour as well as the fact it is all in uppercase.

 

Text Relationship

Analysis of 'Insidious' has made it clear that titles should be the emphasis of the opening. If there is no action, like in 'Insidious', it's best to use bold fonts and choose a colour that stands out. This allows the audience to focus on the titles, and therefore the colour red (associated with blood and horror),as well as the random transition of each letter (enforcing the idea of mystery and horror)

The focus on the colour and, therefore, genre means the audience focus on the genre of horror, which builds up tension as the audience know that something bad will happen, as it's apparent through the general theme of horror as well as the music and typography.

How Does This Affect Our Production?

The analysis has made me realise how important it is that we think about where the titles will appear in post-production, before we have even started shooting, as a certain amount of the frame was left plain and dark so as the text could fit in next to or around the object shown.

We have thought about trying to incorporate the text onto the different objects in the scene, but we know this could take up too much time, so our back-up plan will be to place the titles clearly in the frame, but towards a corner of the screen, so they don't take up too much of the frame, as the focus will be on the action.