Questionnaire

This questionaire was given out to colleagues in the college, we used this to find out the different types of thrillers people are interested in and what attracted them to it.

 

         

1.     Which film genre do you prefer to watch most?

         

       

      Action thriller   

Adventure thriller 

Comedy thriller 

Horror thriller 

spy thriller 

Romance thriller 

Western thriller 

Sci-fi thriller 

2.    What attracts you to this type of thriller?

    

characters

     confusion 

mystery 

suspense 

3.    What attracts you to thrillers?

     story line 

directors

adverts 

   intensity  

4.    How important is an enigma or a mystery to the opening of a thriller? 

very important 

important 

not so important 

not important 

   

5. In the opening of a thriller do you think the plot should be revealed or left unknown?     

revealed 

left alone 

 6.   What do you think the most important element to a thriller is?

music 

plot 

acting 

special effects 

7.  In which way do you think  thriller should open? 

present time 

flash forward 

flash back 

everyday life 

8.  What do you think makes a thriller tense? 

music 

acting

camera angles

setting 

9.  How important is dialogue to a thriller ? 

very important 

important 

not so important 

  not important 

Comparing Se7en and Panic Room

The difference between the opening of Se7en and panic room is that the panic room is a more relaxed and simple opening whereas the opening of Se7en is more tense and makes our brains work more to find out that is going on.

The opening of Se7en is set in a dark environment and it is focused on one person but in panic room it is focused on the buildings and on two people at the end. 

A variety of shots are taking in the opening of Se7en to make a bit more tense and to make us think what will happen next and what is going on. panic doesn't take that many and there not as fast as the ones in Se7en making the opening more relaxed and easy to understand. Se7en uses close ups and medium close ups to to show the persons face with detail and to show what he is doing with detail. it also shows his hand and what happened to it. 

Se7en has used these shots because the opening is focused on a subject (the person) and the things he is doing  whereas in the panic room there is no main focus nothing is being shown other than the credits and the building. 

Both openings are made by the same director. He has made them very different from one another because they are based on different things and he want’s to create a different effect in both of them. He wanted to try and make the tense and mysterious effect with Se7en and he was very successful in doing that because the opening makes the audience think a lot about what's going on. He wanted to bring the more calm side when he made panic room he wanted to show us the film would be set in the busy streets of New York, after the camera pans down and we see two women walking one in a hurry and one just following. 

The music used in Se7en is just a kick and a synth hi-hat most of the other sounds are non diegetic these sounds are used to create the atmosphere of  mystery it also adds tension. The music in panic room is a string quartet which increases in tempo during the sequence and then it goes back to normal. This is done to create the atmosphere of tension like a heart beat to show something is going on and its making someone's heart race. 

Opening Sequence Analysis of Sev7n

Camera Shot/Angle/Movement

The opening sequence starts with a close up of a book and in the background a hand turning the page, we cannot really see the hand properly since it is blurry in the background. we the see a range of shots of the person doing things with the book and writing things in the book. this is done so we cannot see who is turning the book it is meant to be a mystery that maybe we will find out later on in the film

Sound

The music being played is very simple its just a kick and a synth hi hat sound playing but as the opening sequence continues a series of additional sound effects are added making the music different and strange linking to what the man is doing in the sequence the use of diegetic sounds makes it more realistic and 

Editing

The editing in the opening sequence was done quite well and its effective. It brought the effect that the movie would contain something weird it the flashing light effect was used abstract images were also used to make us see images that were hidden. it makes the audience almost know what the film will be about 

Characters

We do not see the the character in the opening sequence this leaves the audience in mystery. we see the deformed hands of someone we dont see whether the person with the deformed hand is male or female but its more likey to be male this just adds to making the audience guess and wonder what is going to happen and what is going on

Locations

We do not see the location but i personally think the person has used an abandoned warehouse and used it for his little den of weirdness. The fact that we do not know where he is makes us wonder to the persons whereabouts.

Narrative/Plot

If we look at what the person is doing is not what normal people would be doing he is cutting parts of his skin on his finger off with a blade his also doing weird things with the book by highlighting things with a dark pen, we can tell from this the narrative is going to be. I think it will be something like the man is trying to kill someone or looking for people to kill for doing something to him or his family in the past.

Themes

There are quite a lot of themes in the opening sequence. we see the themes mystery we also see the aspect of blood. when the person is getting the photo out of the red ink we can relate this to blood.

Visual Style

The opening sequence to seven is very unique. It has been made smartly by the producers of the film. It makes the audience look deep down into their thoughts to think about what is going on. It also leaves them questioning themselves and there is only one way to answer their questions which is by watching the actual film, by just watching the opening sequence they should have already discovered what genre it will be and if they like it they should watch it.

Genre

We have not been told what the genre is in the opening sequence but it is easy to have a guess at what it could be. using all the information we have found out we can tell it will be a thriller or a horror. 

Opening Sequence Analysis Of Panic Room

Camera Shot/Angle/Movement

The camera is very steady and takes various shots of different places in New York. This is used to show us that the film will be based in new york and its going to be a very busy film since New York is also busy. The camera pans in many of these shots to get the credits in the center of the screen.

Sound

The music being played is very simple. It is a string quartet playing and it seems a bit relaxing at first but then the tic toc sound of a clock is played and it makes the tempo a bit faster meaning tension is building or something dodgey is going happen. When this change in music happens the strings play something different they play more of a jumpy rhythm towards the end the strings return to what was played at first but with the continuous ticking of the clock this makes us feel weary relief meaning something may still happen 

Editing

The editing of this opening sequence is done well but not quite effective. It places the credits in the middle of the buildings and a fade in and out is used in the first two shots.

Characters

We see the characters at the very end of this opening sequence. We see a woman walking along with another woman with the older woman in a bit of a rush. This shows the older woman works and she is in a rush to get to work since she is late, this makes us wonder to weather the woman is organized and manages her time well. The older woman is in her mid 30s or early 40s and the younger one seems like she is 18-20. 

Locations

The location of the opening sequence is in the busy streets of New York. This just shows that the film may be very busy and something is always happening in contrast to the where its set.

Narrative/Plot

We do not really get a narrative/plot because nothing is being shown only the busy streets of New York and 2 women walking with each other one is in a rush and one is rushing trying to catch up they could be friends, relatives, lovers or parent and child.

Themes

There are no real themes to this opening sequence because it does not really show anything that leads on to anything. All it shows is the location and two women walking it is very hard to get a theme from this so we look at the title and we get a feel of mystery because the title ‘panic room’ sounds very mysterious.

Visual Style

The opening sequence to panic room is very common in many films these days, maybe because the producers do not want to let the audience into what happens to early, they may want the audience to watch the movie to find out what its all about instead of just watching the opening sequence knowing what happens and not watching the rest of the movie. This would lose profit on the movie.

Genre

We have not been told what the genre is in the opening sequence, it is very hard in this instance to guess what genre this film is.