Film Openings

 After deciding that I wanted to do a phycological thriller I wanted to investigate openings of phycological thrillers to workout the conventions, iconography and aspects of a phycological thriller opening. 

Here are some examples of my analysis of these films.

Right at the start of the opening scene we see the boat emerge from the fog, this creates metaphors of the characters being in a dream like state and not being all their. When Teddy looks in the mirror and we are looking directly at him in a medium closeup we can see the use of split lighting that in phycological thrillers is most commonly used  to hint a character has 2 personalities in this case being reality and delusion. When Teddy walks past the chains used for restraining people this is vicarious suspense and causes tension for the audience. The director shows a 2 shot of teddy and his partner on the mission where we can see they are binary opposites, the director does this to show Teddy is all messy in terms of his clothing and looks confused which reflects his mental state whereas his partner is looking perfectly happy and is not messy. Near the end we see a long shot of the island they are going to which is expected in thriller films as it makes the viewer feel small and inferior to what they are against which creates suspense, along with this long shot we hear a parallel music score that adds to mystery and anticipation of the island. In my film I will definitely use split lighting to hint at my characters delusion.

This opening title starts with a scene in a suburban neighbourhood where a man is closing his boot then getting in his car, low key lighting along with a black costume is used which helps to hide the identity of this character which will make the audience fearful. Along with this contrapuntal sound is used which is very creepy and the director has done this to make the audience feel uneasy. We then see this dolly shot going along a set of trees which hints at ideas of mystery and adventure which is typical narrative of a thriller. The contrast between these 2 darker scenes and the happy one establishing the main character foreshadows his doom, furthermore in that scene we see him looking in his mirror which connotes self-reflection which is convention of the thriller genre. I will use the iconography of reflection in my film by using puddles.

This push in shows that we are entering the joker’s world, which makes everything that happens to him feel more personal and question are morals. The use of match on action edits of him mixing the paint and then applying it to his face shows that the joker is creating this character for himself. Closeups of the face are common in psycalogical thriller as it shows emotion. The over the shoulder shot is super significant as normally over the shoulder shots are used in conversation between 2 people however here it expresses that the joker has arguments and fights with himself. Furthermore, the eyeline match here of the joker looking in the mirror reflects his self-image and him crying tells us he is unhappy. The long shots of the joker dancing show how insignificant he is in the world. I am planning to use push in shots and closeups in my film to make the film more personal for the viewer like they are stepping into the world.