Research: Thriller Openings - Mrs. Quinlan

Introduction

Film openings are important as they play a big part in helping the audience understand what could be going on within the film. Film openings are also good as they have a psychological impact on the audience through their possible narrative and connotations. The audience could respond to openings through the use of many techniques such as settings and iconography, which helps to empower the audiences understanding of the narrative. The purpose of film openings is to enable the creation of a films context and directive. This helps the audience understand how something in the film is happening and why it is happening. Common conventions of a thriller opening are that it includes a clear narrative and where apparent there are also opportunities for the audience to understand the theme/s, also it will be normal to produce something capable of gaining a response from the audience from the start through to the end. Taking some examples of thriller films we can see to what effect openings are important to a thriller film.

In the opening of the film Se7en a close up is used to show the protagonist/antagonists face up close for extra effect and for the audience to acknowledge current emotions and/or how they may be feeling. Another use in the film is Hand Held (cinematography) to portray the current situation and expectations around the character and follow them wherever they go. Another thing I extracted from this movie is the use of Parallel Sound, this is conventional as it creates tension and may follow the rising action to the climax.

Looking at some examples of thriller openings we can see that there are many common conventions which link them all together yet are so diverse they each create something unique about their opening. The opening of thriller film The Bourne Ultimatum is very vivid in the use of cinematography and editing. We see this guy, the character trying to get away from the police yet there is once again no known narrative but as an audience we are still intrigued and confused which is leading us to be more interested into his character role, why he is running and what the story is. Lowkey lighting is used to portray the dark situation he has found himself in followed by the light at the bottom of the stairs as if to say that after all his troubles he will be successful in whatever he is doing. The use of straight cuts here to show the character fixing his own wounds is very successful as they are used at a pace that gives us an idea of his current predicament and because of all that running it can suggest also that they are using the speed of straight cuts to explain his current heartbeat and rising tension in the scene after being chased by the police.

In the opening of The Watchmen, the use of back lighting creates a silhouette of the two characters currently engaged in their current conflict to produce the effect that their identities are hidden in that current moment. Another thing was the use of manual focus to point out the main things and forget about the not so important items in the scene like the smiley badge. Also I like the idea of using jazz music as it is a calm genre of music whereas the scene in the film was a total contradiction. 

From the opening of this film The Stepfather (1978) I believe the audience will look at this and think of it as a rather mysterious film. The use of straight cuts just adds to the effect of a mysterious vibe as they keep calm throughout the opening and there are no brutal or violent scenes in this. Also they just went straight into introducing this character as a rather peculiar one using contrapuntal sound to portray the character so he comes across as being weird. The use of an establishing shot is also used to introduce the environment of the scene and where it is based to help on our further understanding of the scene and film.

Conclusion

From looking into different effects added to make the opening of different films what they are I may intend on using non-diegetic sounds to give the effect that the scene is not what it seems and is instead something else. This will give the audience a good understanding of what to expect and/or what I may add to support the road I want to walk down with my opening.