I am a big fan of the horror movies directed by James Wan 温子仁.
Wan is a master when dealing with the scary effects. He otfen uses sounds to direct audience’s attention, like the squeaks from a door. He is also good at illustrating spaces and utilizing psychological effects to generate horror. There is a Classic “Hide and Clap” scene in The Conjuring 招魂 from 2013, where he scares the audience with an unexpected hand clapping.
He uses multiple techniques to create the atmosphere and foreshadow, as well as pushing the plot. For this one, as we audience are anticipating something comes from the front with the main character, the ghost suddenly appeared from her back and clapped twice. Also to mention he has done it with various shot angles and camera movements.
I tried to identified the most important shots involving camera movements and created 12 frames for the scene, to explore the techniques he used and illustrate it with explicit words and signs.
Video Clip:
The Conjuring – Wanna play Hide and Clap? – YouTube
Storyboard
PDF Version: