Film Openings

 Thriller Film Openings

    Since I've decided that I want to work with the thriller genre for the film opening I've chosen 3 different film openings in my chosen genre with all different approaches. I decided to choose 3 very distinct thriller film openings to get a more well rounded view of how I should establish a suspenseful tone right from the beginning or decide which route I want to take myself.

Film #1 Se7en-Crime thriller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BJkDyCdw0c&t=145s

    This film opening caught my attention the most when trying to find good thriller examples because of the dark lightning, fast paced and overlaps in the editing, slow beat music, amount of detail, and creaking sounds. The close up shots make the opening more mysterious since we can't put a face to the hands being shown throughout the opening. The mise-en-scene elements also help tie into that and give off that disturbing and menacing tone that thriller films typically include. The fear one may feel watching the opening comes from the tension and mystery building in the scene and watching it intensify.

Film #2 Gone girl-Psychological thriller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khzdkne_fPc 

    This film opening starts off with a woman’s head in dim lightning with a voiceover of a man saying “When I think of my wife, I always think about her head… I picture cracking her lovely skull, unspooling her brains, trying to get answers.” Then it cuts to multiple scenes of random places in a empty silent town all represented through dark lighting. Starting right off the bat with a line as harsh as that creates an unsettling feeling in the viewers from the very beginning, knowing the man who said that is mentally ill. Although, it was a very disturbing image in my head I love how they established that it’s a psychological thriller from the first 2 minutes of the film and created suspense without scaring people away.

Film #3 Night crawler- Psychological Thriller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m1_mZxbs-I

    This film opening is different because although it's a psychological thriller its shown through a different way. The way they engage viewers from the beginning is through dialogue. Here the film clearly shows he's taking part in something wrong since he pretends that he is lost and didn't read any of the signs that said do not enter. Eventually he takes the police's watch and gets away with it, at least in these first 2 minutes so we know it is going to be an interesting movie.

    I'm excited to brainstorm ideas for my own 2 minute opening film and decide how I can incorporate some ideas from what I've learned and researched about different film openings.