Mehrabi Ward, American Horror Story - Asylum, Opening Credits Analysis

Opening Credits to Asylum (AHS):

I decided to look at the opening credits to the episode 'Asylum' as part of the series to 'American Horror Story'. I captured a few of the camera shots used in the credits and explained why I think they were effective.

This is a long shot of some of the setting used in the opening credits. I like this shot because everything around the outside is almost completely black and there is only one small source of light at the far end of the shot, and you are only able to see a couple of (what look like) beds. I also like how there is water on the floor which makes the setting look uncared for and possibly dirty. The water also reflects the light which just brights up that one area by the window, making the parts of the scene that are in the shadows look even darker. 

This is one of the second shots that I liked. This is a low angled shot of what looks like to be one of the patients in this asylum. I like how in this shot because the main source of natural light is coming from above, it makes the person in the wheel chair look like just a black figure, which creates a mysterious and thrilling effect as we cannot see what they look like. As well as this we are not able to see clearly the surroundings in this scene, so we don't know what the room they are in looks like.

This is a close up shot of a man looking through a cage. I think that this shot is quite eerie because we are not able to see the mans face totally, as the level of lighting in the shot is very low, and a lot of the surroundings are mostly in the darkness or shadowed. 

This is a close up shot of what looks like people cutting into a pigs head. This shot is very gory as there is a lot of blood involved in the shot. This could relate to the common conventions of a physcological horror, as it could be referring to an obsession.

This is the final title of the opening credits. This shows the size, the format and type of font they have used for the title. They have used a very unique sans-serif font, it almost looks quite dated. The size of the title is quite large and they have positioned the title in the middle of the page.