Textual analysis: Student film 'Secret Intelligence Service'

At the start of this Thriller film opening, it shows a close up of man’s hands quickly typing on a laptop and another shot of typical London bus driving through an ordinary looking street. It switches between these two shots multiple times, which instantly gives the film opening a quick pace to it as both of the shots show movement. The diegetic sound of the man typing and of the bus moving also builds tension which is a key theme in most thriller films. The man, whose face is still unseen in this first scene, creates a narrative enigma in the opening film as the audience are still unaware of who he is and what he is doing. The use of the distorted non-diegetic sound of a man speaking in the background also builds tension and creates another narrative in the way that the audience doesn’t know who he is and what he means when he says “it could have been prevented”. The sound of the baby crying from the baby monitor signifies that something is wrong and that someone is in danger which is a key convention in thrillers. The sound of the crying baby continues to build tension even further, this tension comes to an end with the explosion of the bus to add dramatic effect.

After the explosion, a series of news clips show the after effects of the explosion and hint to the reader of what the probable cause of the explosion was (a terrorist attack). This adds another narrative enigma to the storyline, as it is unclear of who did it and why. These news clips are edited in a way in which is quite disorientating for the audience, as there is a large number of clips which are shown in quick succession. This allows the film to keep the general fast pace which has been running through it and allow the generic convention of suspense which is common in thrillers to be continued.

When the man is shown, we can see that he is in his early twenties and that he is living in a middle classed house/apartment. However, his clothes (suit and tie) suggest he may be of a higher class and it also highlights his possible line of work. He is shown in quite a stereotypical manor of how a man goes by his morning routine, doing exercises (sit ups, push ups, weights), having a shower, getting changed into work clothes etc. when this is taking place, fast paced non-diegetic music is heard to add pace to the man’s morning routine which in reality would probably be quite slow. After the man leaves his house, a wide shot pans across the city of London to establish the location of the film. Long shots are shown of the man when he is walking to show the pace in which he is walking and to show his body language. The man is then shown on a high angled shot which has been edited to be coloured slightly green so that it can be interpreted as a CCTV camera. This high angle shows us that the man is very vulnerable and the fact they are using a CCTV camera style suggests to the audience that the sub-genre of the film is crime as those specific types of cameras are commonly used to capture footage of people crimes. This suggestion can also be justified by the explosion of the bus, which we know was a form of terrorist attack because of the short news clips which were shown.