Year : 2013
Director: James Wan (Saw, Insidious, Aquaman, Furious 7)
Country: United States (Warner Bros. / New Line Cinema)
Director of Photography: John R. Leonetti (brother of Matthew F. Leonetti - the DP of Strange Days; already in this collection with Death Sentence, 2007)
Editor: Kirk M. Morri
Music: Joseph Bishara (Wan's regular composer since Insidious, also plays the demon Bathsheba in the film)
Song from the sequence: "Time of the Season" by The Zombies (1968)
Camera: ARRI Alexa (digital, first Wan/Leonetti project on sensor after Death Sentence was shot on film)
Optics: Leitz Summilux-C Series
Stabilization: Steadicam (according to Larsen on Film, Wan "easily switches from an elegant Steadicam to a shaky handheld camera as needed for the scene")
Method: apparent long take, continuous tracking shot across the farm, introducing each member of the family
Filming location: Keith House, near Wilmington, North Carolina (exterior shots). Wan refused to film in the actual Arnold house in Rhode Island.
Characters introduced in the plan: Roger Perron (Ron Livingston), Carolyn Perron (Lili Taylor), and their five daughters, Andrea (Shanley Caswell), Nancy (Hayley McFarland), Christine (Joey King), Cindy (Mackenzie Foy), April (Kyla Deaver) + Sadie the dog
Declared aesthetic: "vintage horror of the 1970s" (Leonetti)
Budget: $20 million
Box office: $319.5 million (×16 budget)
Rhode Island. 1971. A country road. A moving truck rolls between fields and trees. The Perron family arrives, Roger at the wheel, Carolyn beside him, the five girls crammed into the back, and Sadie the dog. The house appears at the end of the road: an isolated, faded, perfect 18th-century colonial farmhouse. The Zombies' "Time of the Season" begins, a psychedelic hit from 1968, soft, dreamy, dated. The Steadicam follows the family. It catches them on the lawn, follows them to the front steps, goes inside with them. Roger and Carolyn open the shutters, walk around the empty rooms. The girls run up and down the stairs. One plays with a music box on the floor. Another explores the dusty corners of a closet. Andrea, the eldest, talks about her new room. Cindy, the youngest, stares at the floor as if she can see through it. The camera glides between them, from the living room to the kitchen, from the kitchen upstairs, from upstairs to the bedrooms, introducing each family member one by one, almost without dialogue. Outside, Sadie barks. Again. Again. The dog refuses to come inside. No one listens. And the camera continues its smooth, serene tracking shot through a house that, as you already know, will kill them.
Why this scene is iconic
PopMatters identified exactly what this shot does: "A long tracking shot through the house on moving day introduces each family member... A quiet, careful visual build-up that elevates what could have been easy jump scares into horrific explosions."
The key word is "silent." The opening shot of Smile 2 (2024, already in this collection) is a continuous scream, knife, gunfire, truck, blood on the snow. The moving-in shot in The Conjuring is the opposite: it's the silence before the scream. Not a single jump scare. Not a single ominous musical note. Just "Time of the Season" and a family moving in. And yet, you feel the house watching you through every window. The fluid camera gives you time to see, really see, the nooks and crannies, the shadows, the narrow staircases, the closet under the steps that will later turn out to be a door to the attic. Wan gives you the map of the house before the war.
PopMatters also noted that Wan uses long takes "with a limited field of vision, shots that simulate both the inhabitants' inability to look away from what disturbs them and their inability to see it." This is the signature grammar of The Conjuring: the camera always shows less than it could. During tracking shots, it never shows what is looking at the family, even though you know, intuitively, that something is watching them. It's off-screen space as a weapon. And the continuous shot makes this off-screen space inescapable: there's no cut to offer you a reassuring wide shot, no cut to an outside face, no cut to the sky. You remain in the house with them.
Larsen on Film wrote: "Wan moves effortlessly from an elegant Steadicam to a shaky handheld camera as the scene demands." The move is all elegant Steadicam, precisely because nothing scary is happening yet. The shaky handheld is reserved for the moments when the house is about to attack. But what's most terrifying about Wan is that he scares you BEFORE the monster arrives by using the calmest Steadicam in the world.
How they filmed it
John R. Leonetti (the Director of Photography) had previously worked with James Wan on Death Sentence (2007), also featured in this collection with the long take in the multi-story parking garage. Death Sentence was Wan's last film shot on 35mm film. The Conjuring is his first shot on a digital sensor, the ARRI Alexa, with Leitz Summilux-C Series lenses. This represents a major shift in the Wan/Leonetti method: film limited shot length (35mm magazines yielded a maximum of approximately 10 minutes), while the Alexa could shoot for hours without interruption. For a long take following a family of seven through several rooms of a house, this freedom in duration was essential.
Leonetti stated that he "modeled the film's cinematography after vintage horror films of the 1970s," such as Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). The choice of "Time of the Season" (1968) as the moving-room theme music fits within this aesthetic: a psychedelic hit from the late '60s that immediately places the viewer in the era, without needing to explain "it's 1971." The song IS the context.
The setting, the farmhouse, is not the actual Arnold home in Rhode Island (where the Perrons did live for 10 years starting in 1971). Wan read Andrea Perron's books and deliberately decided NOT to film in the real house. The Keith House near Wilmington, North Carolina, was used for the exterior shots. This decision allowed Wan complete control over the space; every wall, every window, every staircase could be opened or closed as needed for the long take. A real, inhabited house would not have allowed for this flexibility.
Public sources on the precise technical details of the move are limited; Wan and Leonetti have not given any detailed interviews dedicated to this specific plan (unlike the more widely discussed 360° shot of the Warrens setting up the microphones). What PopMatters confirms is that it is indeed a long, seemingly continuous shot, therefore likely assembled from multiple takes, with cuts hidden in blind spots (stairs, room transitions, furniture movements).
Composer Joseph Bishara also plays the demon Bathsheba in the film. This is his second collaboration with Wan after Insidious (2010), where he also played a demon. Bishara's musical silence during the moving scene (replaced by the zombies) is deliberate: the composer knows when not to compose. The silence here prepares for the scream to come.
What to observe when reviewing it
Sadie the dog who refuses to come inside (mid-shot). While the camera follows the family inside, Sadie stays on the porch, barking, refusing to move. She's the only character in the shot who knows. Roger tries to force her, but the dog resists. Tomorrow, Sadie will be dead. The continuous shot makes this moment all the more poignant: you see the warning, you see no one heeding it, and the camera continues its tracking shot without stopping, just like the family.
The cupboard under the stairs (when Cindy walks past it) : Look for the moment the camera pans past a closed cupboard under the stairs. Cindy stops for a split second and looks at it. It's nothing. It's everything. Later in the film, this cupboard will be revealed as a door to the attic, the place where Bathsheba killed her child. Wan shows you the door before you know it matters.
The fluidity of the Steadicam (the entire shot). Compare this camera movement to the parking lot shot in Death Sentence (2007), by the same Wan/Leonetti duo, also in this collection. Death Sentence is edgy, vertical, shot on film, in neon light. The Conjuring is calm, horizontal, digital, in natural light. Six years separate the two, and Wan has learned to create fear by walking slowly.
Did you know that?
The moving-out shot is one of two single-take sequences identified in The Conjuring by PopMatters. The other, not covered in this article, is a "360° stitched shot that follows the investigators as they move through the house, installing a microphone in each room." Both shots serve the same narrative function: mapping the house. The first maps it for the family (the victim). The second maps it for the Warrens (the hunters). Wan uses the single-take sequence as a map that the film will later tear apart.
This plan completes the Leonetti arc in this collection, three articles covering two brothers who were cinematographers and three films:
Strange Days (1995, Matthew F. Leonetti) The opening POV (Point Of View) shot. Bigelow and Cameron invent the helmet camera, a year of R&D.
Death Sentence (2007, John R. Leonetti) The multi-story car park, 35mm 500 ASA, Wan's last film on film.
The Conjuring (2013, John R. Leonetti) The move, ARRI Alexa digital, first WAN on sensor.
Three films, three techniques, two brothers. The Leonetti dynasty joins the Richmonds (George + Jonathan + Anthony B.) as one of the two major technical families of the blog.
And this shot is the direct ancestor of the opening shot of Smile 2 (2024, Parker Finn, already in this collection). Both films are horror films that open with a continuous shot. But their functions are reversed: Smile 2 begins with a continuous scream (a gunshot, a truck). The Conjuring begins with continuous silence (a family moving in). Wan lulls you to sleep. Finn suffocates you. And both work because in horror, the continuous shot isn't about length or virtuosity. It's about who controls your breathing. Wan makes you breathe slowly. Finn takes your breath away.
Sources
PopMatters - Jesse Hassenger, "'The Conjuring' Uses Careful, Quiet Visual Build-up" (July 2013)
Larsen on Film – “The Conjuring” review (2014)
John R. Leonetti - interviews cited in IMDB Reviews (2013)
Giggster - "Where Was The Conjuring Filmed? Explore Wilmington NC Locations" (December 2025)
ShotOnWhat - The Conjuring (2013) Technical Specifications (ARRI Alexa, Leitz Summilux-C Series)
Wikipedia - The Conjuring
The Conjuring Universe Wiki/Fandom - The Conjuring (2013)
Hall of Horror Wiki/Fandom - The Conjuring (2013)
The Hollywood Reporter - Leonetti interview for Annabelle (2014)
Also read:
The Haunting of Hill House S1E6 (2018) - The Haunting of Hill House - The other great domestic horror long take in the collection: same hostile house, same Steadicam mapping the space before the terror, but on the scale of an entire episode.
Narrative Effectiveness: Long Take vs. Editing https://www.plan-sequences.com/blog-plan-sequences/efficacite-narrative-plan-sequence-contre-decoupage - Why Wan is more frightening walking slowly than climbing quickly: the long take as a map of impending threat
