Analysis of the opening credits for the ward

At the very start of the opening credits of the ward it starts off with a dolly shot to move down the corridor of a hospital ward, throughout the pan there is use of flashing lights and sound effects to make the audience feel like they are in suspense. when the camera gets to the end of the hall way you see the title of the film appear after zooming out to it, the title is in serif font, but the name 'John Carpenter' is in sans-serif. There are whistles used throughout the start of this opening sequence this is due to the suspense that needs to be built up in order to keep the audience on the edge of their seat to make them want to watch the rest of the film. as well as the whistles there is use of thunder noises which has a link to fear which a lot of people are familiar with. the sound of a heartbeat is added to this bit of the sequence which gives the audience the feel that there is something bad that is going to frighten them in the rest of the film. as well as this there is a faint noise of footsteps which gives the impression that there is someone coming into the scene which may contribute to a future point in the film (foreshadowing).

throughout the rest of the opening sequence, the whole way through the images are in black and white or sepia, to transition between images there is a flash of white, this is due to the eery feel they give the audience, this relates to the film in many different ways, the image breaks up like broken glass, then the pieces of glass moves down the screen dragging the picture parts with it. All of these pictures have a denotation of suffering, you can see this from the facial expressions of the people in the pictures and the way that these pictures have been taken. There is a black and white colour scheme which makes the sequence more eery, this helps to impact the viewer due to the fact that it has a dark and  danger feel to it. At the end of this extract there is a shattered bit of glass that has the start of the films video in it, the visuals for this is important as it links straight from the opening sequence to the film itself without any transitions needed. as it goes into the video the glass that features the video spins very slowly round to reveal more visuals.

when the credits appear they fade in and out, and they feature on the four corners of the film extract. all of these names are in sans serif font and capitalised which catches the eye of the viewer as they are drawn to it which overpowers some of the images used to impact the audience of this film.

As well as all of the point made above during the extract after the title of the film hows there is use of non-diegetic sound of high pitched ritualistic rhythmic moaning, which makes the viewer feel uncomfortable, this is the sort of thing that john carpenter has aimed to do as it reflects the film very well as the film itself is meant to be a horror/thriller that shocks the audience. The use of violins throughout this clip is very good as it helps draw up an eery feel to the film. When listening to the sound without watching the video i get the feeling that it is the sort of sounds that would appear when china dolls appear in the screen, in my opinion i feel as if John Carpenter has made it feel that way to the viewer to get the response from the audience that it is a scary film, so from this aspect it has worked well, as me as a viewer my first response was that i was freaked out by the way in which the sounds impacted me. From the impact i got from the opening credits i get the feeling that it is a taste for what's to come in the rest of the film.