RESEARCH: Art of the Title, American Horror Story: Cult

ART OF THE TITLE: American Horror Story: Cult 

I decided to research American Horror Story: Cult season 7 of the famous American drama series. It is a American anthology horror television series. The TV series is based during the year 2017 after the historic U.S. presidential election. The show centres on a cult terrorizing the residents of the USA in the aftermath of these elections. This isn’t a movie however is a television series, however I’m aware I will not be creating a TV series this opening attracted me because of the editing and camera work skills so I wanted to analyse it more. The title sequence of Cult shows a sense of horror, violence and disturbia as it captures lots of close ups of people cleaning blood of their hands and people covered in blood. 

The title sequence is filled with lots of hard cuts that move quite quickly back and forwards. This editing gives us the idea that there are lots of different events that happen through out this show that are filled with gory. These fast shots make it a opening sequence because we are not learning anything that happens through the series but we have a clear representation of what the genre will be. 

They have used a various amount of interesting mise-en-scène to show us what the series may be about, an example of this is when we see one of the characters apply a mask of Donald Trump the current US president, this is relevant as it shows that the show will somewhat be political. There is also a close up shotof another character putting on a mask of Hillary Clinton. 

The title sequence for Cult follows the genre conventions by presenting us with names of the actors, producers, directors between each shot there is a shot with a title of a name of an Actor/Actress within the series. This shows its an opening sequence as it is showing us who will be presented throughout the series and who the big names are. 

The theme of blood is shown throughout the opening sequence as we see extreme close ups of characters covered in blood. The camera angles move rapidly from a point of view shot to a birds eye shot. This rapid editing and movement of camera angles shows that this is an opening sequence as it is trying to excite the viewer on what they are about to watch. The soundtrack throughout the sequence builds tension and fear for the viewer. 

I really like the effect of this opening and think that the hard cuts make it very exciting. I would like to use hard cuts in my own work as I think it creates a storyline very effectively. The rapid changes from close ups to wide shots tell a story and create suspense.