CO - The Orphanage deconstruction

Release Date: 2007
Director: Juan Antonio Bayera
Budget: €3,000,000
Opening Weekend:  $338,024 (USA)

• After a long sequence of silent credits, the film begins with a panoramic shot of a picturesque sky that fades in from the blackness. It uses diagetic sound of a natural environment, and we hear birds chirping and the wind rustling through the trees, to help capture an ideal world.
• The camera pans down from the sky, and we see the titular orphanage in the background of a serene, picturesque view. There are innocent children playing in the foreground, and bold colours, mainly consisting of green and gold, creating a beautiful backdrop.
• The camera then zooms in to the main girl playing a game against a tree, and the shadows of the tree darken the mood slightly, hinting at the theme of mystery and fear. Then, as the children play, hands start to approach one of the girls, in a fairly creepy and intimidating way, signifying that it's a horror/thriller film.
• Throughout the introductory scenes, calm, soothing and tranquil piano plays throughout, adding a sense of peacefulness to the scene, which may or may not add to a false sense of happiness before the horror starts to kick in. However, it does add to the serene beauty of the location in the introduction.
• As the children play in the picturesque setting, the camera flies upwards diagonally to reveal a scarecrow at the end of the field. This scarecrow is particularly crucial to be included as soon as this because not only is it an omen of horror and the supernatural, but it's face is mirrored later on by the main antagonist of the film, who wears a sack over his head due to horrific deformities.
• After this brief introduction, the title scene appears. This is done phenomenally well, and is portrayed by a child (namely the antagonist)'s hand ripping wallpaper away to reveal the stylised, serif-font title.