Anotationg of thrillers

I have been watching thrillers to inspire my storyline and setting for a film that I could make and produce.
Se7en, this film was made by David Fincher. This film had very eerie music that defiantly scared me and really made an impact on the audience it had a moaning scratching quality which makes the audience feel very uneasy. There was a very scary flashbacks effect that kept being used cutting from writing to pictures in a dark room; this red light effect was very blood like. In the opening sequence we seem to think it is a man and we only see his hands and this is very mysterious and he also seems to be collecting evidence. So we tend to think it is a murder inquiry or he is the murderer and tend to think he is the murderer as we never see his face which gives use a sense of mystery and worry that he is not trustworthy. The titles are very child like and are in the left hand corner and are like etching the titles they are white on the dark background which highlights the title. There are a lot of shots in the dark room with dripping pictures being developed and this gives us a sense of dripping blood and as the lighting is red the liquid looks red. There are a lot of close ups of his writing which is very childlike and gives him a sense of venality and this is very scary as children in thriller are usually used very cleverly. This makes us panicked and scared about what he is writing he also seems to be self harming by shaving the ends of his thumbs and fingers. This is almost as if he is hiding his identity by taking away his finger prints and not allowing himself to be recognised this makes us think he is ashamed of his own identity. This conforms very well with nearly all of the conventions apart from the twist in story line which I suspect comes later in the movie not in the beginning credit sequence. I think this opening sequence is very effective and is the perfect opening sequence for a thriller.




• The other opening sequences I looked at were “The usual suspect” this is completely different and this film seems to be more batman adventure like than se7en. The direct uses a lot of close ups that make us as an audience feel uneasy and concentrates on one purposeful object. They also use a lot of dark colour the connotation of this is cold and shadow and night time which gives a sense of mystery and suspicion. There is a lot of diegetic sound like foot steps and dripping water and not very much dialog, this is to add a mysterious curious sense to the opening sequence. The use of camera angels is very good as they do high and low angle shots for the villain and victim this allows use to have a clear perspective of who’s who. We never see the villains face which dose scare us as an audience we only see from his stomach down the victim is on the floor hurt and venerable. The mis-en-scene is gloomy and dark and does fit the conventions of a thriller but it is predictable as he is a ruined buildings and the villain throws a lighter on the floor. We all know what’s going to happen. This makes this thriller unsuccessful as there is supposed to be a sense of mystery and confusion. The use of music is very good as it creates tension and atmosphere which scares the audience and builds tension for what’s happening. There is a twist in the storyline as the villain shots the victim before dropping the lit match which doesn’t make any sense. There being a death at the beginning is very drawing as the audience will be thinking why has he died what did he do. There is a huge explosion after the match being lit and dropped but we don’t know weather the villain made it out as you can’t see this does make us want to come back and find out. The cuts and fades were very well done and they used a lot of fading one shot into another which was subtle and very effective and almost unnoticeable cuts at times. I think this is a more jumpy adventure film opening sequence then thriller.



• The last opening sequence I evaluated was hostage this opening sequence is very different to other ones it seems to not fit a lot of the thriller conventions. The music was very much thriller it was very much like opera and felted very haunted ghostly and eerie which is exactly what thriller music should be like. The typography was 3D the way the credits were up on the 3D buildings was very effective and subtle. There were soldiers on a building battle field almost it felt very much like a cartoon and was not effective in my opinion. The credits seemed to go on for a tad to long and had a sense of army type and seemed very a war game. I did like the way that all the action seemed to be frozen while the credits were displayed it seemed very panicked and confusing. The connotation of colour was reds which in this case of army battle fight was blood and black and white which went perfectly with the red. These colours are used a lot in thrillers as these colours mesh well and the connotation is perfect for a thriller. The movie seemed very concerted on weapons and it seemed very violet which sounds like an adventure film but the connotation of colour is very much thriller as other thriller movies seems to use this. My opinion of this thriller opening sequence is that it has got some positives with the music being thriller and colour but the camera effects and 3D type (font) was not a good idea for a thriller and didn’t fit very many thriller conventions.



This has allowed me to get inspiration for what I would like in my opening sequence and has given me lots of ideas.