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Wednesday 5th November
Thriller Film Opening 5 - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
My fifth analysed thriller opening is from the film 'The girl with the dragon tattoo' directed by David Fincher, 2012.
Mise en Scene
There are various images that appear on screen during the opening credits. The same shot is never used twice, if the same subject is used then a different camera show it used on it. This confuses the audience and makes them feel clueless because they don't understand any of the images of why they're being shown them. This lack of knowledge and understanding makes they worry and become stressed trying to figure out what's happening.
All the shots are dark; black on black is used in all the shots for effect. White is not used nearly as much in the shots and these are the only two colours used in shots. This shocks the audience because black on black isn't used often in media. This also creates mystery and makes the audience feel stressed because they could easily miss something in the dark shots. This black connotes the dark nature of the film and puts the audience on edge because of the seemingly violent acts in the opening scene.
The only other element we see used in the opening scene is fire. We see things on fire, things being set alight and something burning taking off and flying away. The mesh of violent images and the use of fire makes the audience feel scared and agitated about the events of the film. It also makes them worried because they feel helpless due to their insufficient knowledge about what's happening.
There's a mix of objects, people and animals used in the shots. Some of the things we see are;
Black Figures
(0:34, 0:38)
Flowers (1:16,1:51)
Electric Cables (0:44)
Bee(s) (1:42)
This seemingly random mix of animals, people and objects confuses the audience and makes them wonder how all these things fit together and what they signify if anything. We don't want to do this in our opening, we only want things put in the opening that we're going to use and pull together.
There's some kind of liquid in every shot throughout the opening.
This creates anticipation for the film because the audience wants to understand what's going on. It makes them question why liquid is used so much in the opening scene.
Events, Themes, Characters
There are lots of strange things happening in the shots on camera during the opening scene. Although there's a lot going on in all the shots none of them appear to hold any particular significance or hold any clues as to what's going to happen for the main plot. This agitates the audience because they don't know what's happening on screen and they may not actually find answers to their questions.
The main themes of the opening aren't very clear however we're shown many images that would indicate that violence is a major theme within the film. We can also assume mystery is a key theme due to the fact we as an audience have no idea what's happening and we're shown many themes which appear to link together in any way.
As far as we know we don't see any key characters, we only see black figures that appear to not matter at all. We don't see any distinguishing features or defined characters; we don't see any specific details. There appears to be multiple figures but how many isn't known. This lack of characters worries and frightens the audience because they have no idea what's going on or who it involves. It makes them expect more from the film.
Titles and Credits
All the text is white except for the title of the film. This makes the text stand out amongst the dark background and draws attention to it without taking the main focus off the imagery in the shots.
The text appears at different positions in the shots, moving from place to place. This makes it more difficult for the audience to keep up with everything going on in the shot. This makes the audience feel frustrated because they can't keep up with what's happening.
The text onscreen is fairly small compared to all the other aspects on the screen. This helps the audience keep up with what's happening in terms of the imagery used in the clip. It also makes the opening scene look more organised in terms of what's on screen.
All the text in the clip is serif except for the title of the film. This makes the text look smart and neat, it looks out of place amongst everything else happening on the screen. This puzzles the audience because of the contrasting text and imagery in the opening scene.
The film title is placed in the center of the screen making it look more important than any and all other text feature in the clip. The film title is also much bigger and a different colour than the other text in the opening scene. This exaggerates the importance of the title and alerts the audience of the significance of the title.
Sound
Instead of a composed background track the background music is a cover of a well-known rock song. The song contributes to the already creepy nature of the opening scene and makes the audience anticipate the events of the film and makes them feel worried and stressed out just watching the clip.
The music is quite fast paced and this adds to the rushed, fast moving opening scene. It makes the audience and atmosphere feel more manic and quick moving. I don't think this is something we will want to do for our thriller opening.
The pitch of the music is quite low, we hear heavy drums throughout almost the entire clip. This makes the audience feel like something’s going to happen, it puts them on alert because of this feeling. The heavy drums make the audience feel overwhelmed with everything happening all at once.
During the song there's a systematic screaming noise, this creates a feeling or organised chaos. The vocals in the song are quite harsh; they sound raspy and give off a sense of power and dominance about the woman singing. This makes the audience feel like they have no power and they feel panicked because of their lack of power.
Camerawork
The clip mostly consists of close ups of various subjects of attention, the closeness of the object means we as an audience are prevented from seeing the full object or image. This makes the audience feel helpless because of their lack of knowledge and understanding about what's going on around them. We want to use a wider range of camera shots and techniques to create different effects and feelings within the audience.
There are a few aerial shots of objects used in the clip; this gives the audience a wider view of what's happening. This confuses them more than previously and creates panic within them because of the insufficient information they hold. This isn't something we think we'll be doing in our thriller opening.
The very last shot is a close up of a person’s mouth. The camera rather quickly zooms into the person’s mouth as if we're entering her mouth. This distresses the audience because this is un-natural and strange for them to be seeing, it also adds to the creepiness of the opening credits. This abrupt end zoom also notifies the audience that they're at the end of the credits providing some kind of relief for them as well as putting them on edge for whatever's going to come next. We don't think we're going to end our thriller opening abruptly because we want our audience to feel more on edge when the credits end.
Editing
The editing in the clip is fast paced, matching the rushed, manic feel of the opening credits. This makes the audience feel unbalanced and almost neurotic whilst watching the opening scene. This is something we don't want to do in our opening; we want to keep the audience relaxed and in effect more on edge because of this.
Throughout the entirety of the clip only straight cuts are used. There are no fades, wipes or dissolves. The use of straight cuts adds to the rushed, fast paced nature of the film. This makes the audience again feel out of control of the situation.
The images are edited to look creepier and almost futuristic. This makes the viewer feel out of touch with the environment on screen. It also makes them feel anxious and out of place whilst watching. We want to have a more modern feel to our opening so that the viewer feels more worried because it's in their reality instead of another.