Research

For our research we looked at various thriller openings to see what conventions are used commonly. The first film we watched was Alfred Hitchcock's film, Marnie.

 

The film starts with the universal logo, situated on a paper page. This page is soon turned to reveal the opening titles. This denotation of turning pages connotes a story book, and suggests a story is coming. To accompany this, the music sways from soft romance to typical thriller music (fast paced etc). This suddenly cuts to a juxtaposing diagetic sound, which simply involves heels clicking. 

The first narrative shot of the film was a close up of a yellow bag. This

 use of the colour yellow helps the audience understand the importance of the bag. This along w

ith the footstep sound, lets the audience understand that it is a girl that is walking, and soon as sh

e leads out of shot, we understand that she is in fact walking along a train-station. 

This shot creates an a

enigma, as the audience don't know what's in the bag or who she is. These questions are answered as we suddenly cut to a shot of a man saying the line : "Robbed!" This implies that she has robbed him and perhaps whatever has been robbed is in her (yellow) bag. We soon discover what has been robbed as we cut to an empty safe and hear the words '9000 dollars'. The next interesting shot is the close up back to the yellow bag once again highlighting its importance. The shots are followed start to show more about the lady but we don't get to see her face till at least five minutes in. The opening is very successful in building up enigma and keeping the audience on edge .

Other films we researched:

Vertigo

• It opens with a extreme close up of a eye. Colour correction has been used to give a element of disorientation.
• The camera moves around onto other facial features, this creates enigma as the audience want to see the person fully and know who it is.
• We zoom back into the eye. The mise-en-scene is now completely filled with the pupil. With, further distortion, a 'whirlpoolish' effect emerges from the iris. This is a great example of how effective direction, can create an effect of prolonging tension.
• The title of the film appears with appropriate dramatic music, surprising the audience with a high pitched instrumental sound.  

Blade runner

• The opening of this thriller is very unique. unlike any other we have studies, we begin by seeing the context of the film. This is a very simple way to introduce the characters and the plot.
• The music accompanying this is very spasmodic and typical of the thriller genre. However there is also a element of sci-fi with in the soundtrack as it uses a very cliched futuristic sound.
• An establishing shot is then used to let the audience understand the futuristic environment. This is very effective in ensuring the viewer gains the full impact of the futuristic world.  

Seven

This whole opening is a montage. Cut to the beat of the

 distorted music, we see quickly cut images, all to do with the plot. These

 disturbing images create a very tense and uncomfortable atmosphere, ensuring the audience a

re on the edge of their seats. 

Other films we watch to gain a wider understanding of thrillers.... 

• The 3rd man
• Kiss me deadly

After looking at these films in detail, we have taken certain features on board which could improve our final opening sequence.

•  quick cuts
  
• diagetic sound creating atmosphere
• extreme close-ups
• interesting use of titles

completed continuity

Throughout filming our continuity  we made sure we referred to the story board at all times. All the shots worked and there wasn't any need to change our initial plan. However in editing the sequence we faced several problems  with imovie. For instance when exporting our  final work onto the blog it automatically cropped the image, thus removing vital aspects from the mis-en-scene (such as the mug). Therefore we came to the decision that for our thriller opening, we will use 'Final-cut Express'.

Story boarding- continuity

This is our story board for our practice continuity sequence, its of a man making a cup of tea. The camera shots are labelled along with what is happening in each.

As well as using this task to fully understand the effects of continuity. We will use this sequence to practice other techniques such as the 'whip pan' and the 'cover zoom'. This will be useful for our Thriller opening at a later date. 

 

we chose to use a lot more close ups than normally would be used. we did this to add pace and sense of originality.