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.

The Dark Knight: 9 shot analysis

Textual analysis: The Dark Knight opening scene

Most film openings are used to introduce the main themes, narratives and characters of the film. Although the opening to the Dark Knight does not introduce the main characters of the film, it does present the main themes and generic conventions which are shown throughout the film. This film opening uses a lot of common features of crime thrillers and gives a clear indication to the viewer of what is to come in the film, without explaining anything about the main storyline.

 At the beginning of the clip, it shows a wide shot of a stereotypical modern city, which is establishing the location of the scene and possibly the film. While the camera zooms into a specific building, low volume, fast paced music is heard. When a window smashes from the building, the music becomes much louder and quicker. This emphasises the window smashing and instantly suggests that something is not right as it is not an ordinary, every-day event.  The next shot is from inside the building, showing two masked men who are preparing to zip line to another building. The masked men are used as the narrative enigma of this opening sequence as it allows the audience to question who they are because they are not showing their faces. The masks, which are somewhat creepy looking, gives a sense to the viewer that the men are most possibly the antagonists of this opening scene.

The volume of the music lowers again as the third character is introduced. This character, who is standing in a street, is also carrying a matching mask to the other characters. The camera zooms into the mask which shows that this character is obviously part of the possible crime which is about to take place. When the camera is doing this, it shows it from a low angle, which suggests that this character may have a higher reputation than others. The quiet music is interrupted again by a screeching car which pulls up to the character. This intensifies the music and again, it becomes louder and quicker. This burst of loud music indicates movement and danger which foreshadows what is to come in the clip. The possibility that these men are about to commit a crime is confirmed when it shows they have guns and are loading them in the car. The men also, using their vocals, explain who they are working for and what he looks like. This tells the viewer who the main antagonist of the film is and it reveals a main character of the film without the viewer visually seeing him.

The first murder which is displayed, is on the roof with the two masked men who were first shown at the start of the clip. This introduces a key theme in all thriller films and confirms that these men are extremely dangerous and are committing a serious crime. It quickly becomes clear that the men are attempting to rob a bank, and the men on the roof are there to disable any emergency alarms. When Braking into the safe of the bank, the drill sound becomes much louder than the background music, this emphasises the crime and what they are doing. This occurs again when one of the antagonists pulls out a needle from a grenade which outlines the possible danger. We see the grenade through a match on action editing technique, this technique is used to show clearly that the grenade is armed and could detonate in seconds, as well as the fact that the antagonist is giving it to one of their hostages. 

The masked antagonists, are all wearing black or dark coloured clothing. Not only is this very stereotypical of bank robbers, but it also adds to the narrative enigma of these characters as it does not provide any clues to who they are. The man who works in the bank who attacks the masked villains is also dressed very stereotypically for a man in his profession (wearing a suit). When this man attacks the robbers with a small shotgun, he is shown in a medium close-up tracking shot. This shot is used because it clearly shows the expression on the man’s face and it also shows the pace of which the man is moving. The volume of music is slowly rising during the attack, which builds tension, up to the point in which the bank man runs out of bullets. This is followed by an awkward silence which shows suspense and hints that the once promising attack from this man has failed. 

Near the end of this clip, there is a shot reverse shot of the two bank robbers. This shows that they are looking and talking to each other, as well as showing their body language. In this case, one of them is pointing a gun at the other. There is also an over the shoulder shot which highlights the fact that one of the men is a pointing a gun at the other. 

In conclusion, I think the purpose of this film opening was to introduce some of the key themes in the film and to give the viewer a presumption of who the main antagonist is and who the main protagonist’s enemy is. The narrative of this film opening centres on a serious crime which is both theft and murder. This also lets us assume that crime, murder, unordinary events and danger are all a key feature in this film.

Opening title sequence analysis: 'Se7en'

In the film ‘Se7en’, the opening title sequence instantly shows the audience what the genre of the film is and what general themes that we can expect to see throughout the film. The film, which is a thriller, also has some sub genres (psychological, crime, action etc.) which are all displayed in this film opening. The Opening title sequence is often a key part of a film as it’s important for the audience to understand what type of film they are watching.

The first indication that suggests that the film is a thriller is the music in this title sequence. The music, which is a very simple, repetitive beat instantly gives the opening a sinister tone and hints to the audience what the main themes of the film will be (murder, crime, cruelty). As the film goes on, the music starts to increase in pace as well as becoming louder and much more bold. The disturbing sounds also have a slight church-like sense to them which foreshadows the storyline later in the film (A serial killer murders people for committing the seven deadly sins).  These disturbing sounds are simply used to add effect to the distressing images and titles which are shown. The way this film opening has been edited creates a flickering effect on the shots and the titles which could cause irritation for the audience. This type of editing is purposely done to make the audience feel uncomfortable when watching it, outlining the genre and the common traits which are used in the film. Most of the shots used in this opening sequence are close up’s of various different objects, some of which would be classed as disturbing to some members of the audience. The dull colour pallet used in this film opening emphasises the dark themes in the storyline, except for some small parts of this title sequence when the colour red is used, connoting danger and blood. There were two types of font used when creating the titles for this opening. The first, is a simple sans serif font which has been distorted to create an unusual effect. The next is also written in a sans serif  fashion and is a font which has been designed to look like someone, who, has not fully developed their hand writing (a child), has written it out on a piece of paper. Both of these fonts complement each other in a peculiar way, as they both have share some similar characteristics which are common in thriller films. The hand-written style font is a very common horror font, and the other distorted font is much more associable with a crime thriller film. As both of these genres of films are included as sub-genres in this thriller film, it suits the title opening very well. The way these titles were introduced were through a flickering effect which allowed them to be displayed very quickly and made them stand out a considerable amount, as your attention would be attracted to something which is constantly moving.

This is very useful to us when thinking about what type of titles we want when creating our own film opening sequence. As our film is a crime thriller, I think the distorted font would be much better suited to it. Our film is set in a modern urban area of a city in England. Therefore, the font would have to be of a sans serif fashion to show the modern era, as well as having a bit of a gritty look to it to represent the low classed urban area to which the film is set. That is why a font such as the distorted one used in the ‘Se7en’ opening title sequence would be appropriate for our film, as it has many of the traits which we are looking for in our titles. The way our titles will be introduced would be very different to how they were in ‘Se7en’ however. As our film opening contains the main basis to the whole storyline of the film, we want the audience to be focused on what the shots are showing rather than having attention on the titles. Therefore, we will probably have them slowly fading in and slowly fading out. This allows the attention to remain on the storyline of the film opening.

AS MEDIA COURSEWORK:

Miles Young

Joe Bradbury

Kyran Smith

Joe Cooper