Five Thriller Opening Sequence

 To conduct research on my genre, thriller, each member in my group has been assigned to study the opening sequence of 2 films each with the view that we are successful in aiding to our audience. We understand the audience of thriller is primarily composed of older adults (25 and up). Younger audiences tend to not understand the mature twists and turns in the storyline and miss key details.  I watched David Fincher's 2014 Gone Girl and Niels Arden Oplev 2017 Flatliners. 

Flatliners

Cin 

-the first shot is of looking out of the window of a moving car in soft focus. The camera itself is still. 

-Shot 2 is a behind the head full shot of a blonde girl. Behind the head shot creates a mysterious effect since the view is unable to identify the character.  

-Shot 3 shows another single shot close woman driving from a behind angle. It is another behind the head shot slightly because we are unable to see her face as well. This contributes to the building tension and the unknown of the characters 

-Shot 4 is a two shot of both females in the front seats of a car. The camera is placed on the left side of them. The shot gives us a close up of the women in the driver’s seat (dark hair) face. She is slightly out of focus while the blonde child in the seat next is her is in shallow focus. Their faces are now visible which decreases the tension within the opening. 

-shot 6 changes to a single eye-level medium close –up shot of the dark hair women driving. 

-The camera switches to a single eye-level close up of the young blond girl. 

-In shot 9 the use a dolly in on the young blonde girl in the passenger seat. This is to convey something is about to happen to her.  

-Shot 10 is a single shot close up of the dark-haired women. They use a close up to emphasize the look of panic she has on her face while glances to her lap and back to ride like she is distracted.  

-The next 6 shots (11-17) show different angles of a car crashing off the side of the road. They use pov shots from the front windshield of the car. They also use low angles and full shots of the car flipping over the bridge.  

-Shot 18 and 19 were close ups of what looks like an operating room. This gives insight to film that it relates to a hospital that experiences a lot of life and death. 

-Shots 19 and 20 use a cut-in from a full to a close shot of a dead body on an operating table.  

-shots 21 and 22. Show various aspects of a cemetery using eye-level shots of the tombstones jump cuts. 

-Shots 19-25 are jarring, very quick jump shots. 

-The outer edges of the shots of blurry making it pay close attention to what is in crisp focus. 

-Shot 28 is a pan up at the foot of a Mortuary table.  

 

 

Editing 

-The first 1-4 shots cut away to credit scenes and back to the main storyline. 

-The credits screens are a plain black background with off coloring of the font. There are slight green and blue streaks quickly appearing and disappearing. 

-Shots of (11-17) are jump cuts of the car crashing. 

-The title of the opening zooms out. The font looks as if it is beating to the beating like a heart. 

-Shot 25 transitions to 26 using a zoom in dissolve effect almost going from a full shot of a cemetery to a close up of tombstones  

-Shot 26- 27 use a flash transition of a close up of casket to a tombstone. 

-shot 23 to 24 transitioned using a flash 

-All the flashes provided anticipation and tension in the viewer.  

-At the end of the opening the flashes to a black screen, which adds to the building tension. 

MES 

-The first scene had a light gray tint. Light gray in films typically relates to loss or depression.  

-A young blonde girl wearing a pink sweater is traveling in a car with another woman with dark hair who is driving. In Shot 5 and 6 They both seem to be happy and smiling.  

• The blonde’s hair is lightly moving to the wind. Behind the head shot creates a mysterious effect since the view is unable to identify the character. 

-The first shot you can make out trees and ln pass them. They are traveling.  

-In shot 6 of the women driving, she looks happy. 

-In shot 7 the young blonde girl is wearing pink and smiling looking over the women in the driver seat. This conveys that good have a good close relationship.  

-the title is revealed after the car accident. The title is in white font, with what looks like blurry glossy lights in the background. There is also a heart Montor line going through the title at a vertical angle.  

-The light grey tint changes to an almost orange yellow-Ish color. This makes the audience uncomfortable. Orange tint typically makes the feelings of caution or warning arrive.   

 

Sound 

-non-diegetic eerie music is playing, raising the tension in the sequence. The music increases as the sequence goes on.  

-In shot four, diegetic sound of the young girl screaming “look out” before the crash adds to the suspension and tension. 

-When the faces of the characters get revealed, the music eases up on the tension feeling until shot  

- -In shot 11 the young girl has a diegetic screams “Courtney”.  

-shots 11-17 we can hear the non-diegetic screeching of the car’s brakes. 

-the also provide diegetic sounds of the crash smashing. This creates a sense of emergency and tension in the viewers.  

-The use a diegetic sound of women crashing into the water which adds to the tension and emergency within the scene.  

-during the car crash the music stops and lets the density play.  

-A fast paced high pitch music sounds playing during the title reveal.  

-the music in the background also has a kind of heart type of rhythm to it. (non-diegetic) It can be assumed that this film has a lot to do with life and death. The sound of a heartbeat in a thriller is often used to convey a character is near death or shaken up. 

-After the title, non-diegetic whispers start to play over the music. This dramatically increases the tension. The whispers appear to be talking about seeing something due to something happening to their body. They use words like “lifeless” and “out of body experience” contributing to the shots they have of cemeteries and operation rooms. From this you can interpret that the film has a lot of as to do with death and loss and making these high-tension situations.  

-At the end of the opening. One of the whispers on the black screen goes “I'm sorry” which build tension and disturbs the viewer. (non-diegetic) 

 

Gone girl 

Cin 

-The first scene is a POV shot from a man’s perspective, it’s a shallow focus close-up shot of a woman laying down on his chest. The women look up at the man, or camera, which is position at a higher angle above her. This mans the man is looking down at her. Like she is frail and weak. This contributes to the relationship dynamic.   

- There is an establishing shot of what looks like the sea with the shore. This typically conveys calmness. Right after an uncomfortable close-up of the women from scene 1.  

-Scenes 3-16 of abandoned places. Showcasing isolation in town.  

-The scene 18 is a knee-level shot of a male standing in front of a house looking lost.  

-Scene 19 is a long shot to the left side of the man continuing to look lost. The shot appears to be slightly low. This could be to signify the power of man.  

-Scene 20 cuts back to a knee-level shot of the man turning around facing the house. 

-Scene 21 he starts to walk towards the house in an extreme long. 

 

Editing 

-The open credit names fade in and out for about 3 seconds or less (before the scenes start and after the first scene with the women.) 

-the first scene fades in at the beginning and fades out at the end. 

-The second scene also begins with a fade in. 

-Scenes 3-17 are jump cuts and cut-in of abandoned buildings 

-The rest of the sequence is composed of match cuts 

-The prologue begins with a J-cut. 

 

 

-Mes 

 

-The first scene is of a blonde woman laying down getting her hair stroked slowly by the hands of a man. This represents a relationship dynamic; the male has the power and control. She appears to have no makeup on and laying in comfortable or lounge clothing.  we suspect this from the lighting, conveying it could be early morning. (1) 

-The opening credits appear on a blank screen centered with white lettering. 

-The title of the film appears on a beach or shore background, still with white lettering and the three seconds. You can see a ship or boat in the distance. The sky appears to be a deep blue and pink color, signifying it’s either around sunrise or sunset time.  

-Shots 3 through 17 cut around to different abandoned buildings and outside areas. This could be showing isolation or emphasizing the abandonment element of the setting or characters. 

-She lifts her face showing a very serious expression staring blankly directly at the camera.  This could be interpreted that something is bothering her, or something could happen. (2) 

-The last scene is a man wearing a gray t-shirt and jeans.- gray conveys compromise, neutral, control, practical. His plain clothing or the color of them give no insight or a neutral feeling to him to give him to add a mysterious affect. Or to show just how normal he really is. 

-very low lighting conveys tension.  The tones used are very dull blues, grays which gives a fickle feeling.  

-The light blue tint that is there throughout the whole opening sequence represents the feeling of isolation, passivity, and calmness. (what does light blue tint signify?). It's another element that contributes to the disconnected and mysterious feeling.  

-lots of shadows that contribute to the mysterious feeling. 

Sound 

-music has a very sinister effect.  

-The male voice over (non-diegetic) talking about breaking his wife’s skull gives the viewers a psychopathic or a deranged background on the character which contributes to the prologue type of opening. Since prologues conventionally go with flashbacks, it’s likely that the first scene on the blonde woman was a flashback.   

-During the prologue of the first scene we know that It’s a husband talking disturbingly about hurting his wife to see inside her head or understand her thoughts.  

-The eerie non-diegetic music gets louder and higher pitch as the sequences continue. The contributes to the tension factor of the sequence. 

Run

My group member, Jeremmiah Arcus, conducted his research on the 2020 horror thriller movie "Run" and "The Women in the Window"(2021). 

The 2 minutes and 20 seconds opening sequence is a prologue using the conventional flashback method. They use a total of 5 shots with a cut to black screen at the ending with words slowly appearing. In shot 1 the setting is a gloomy hospital with low-key lighting with enough to see the doctors working. the camera slowly gets closer to build suspense. They use L and J cuts on the high pitch music that builds up to it's highest point and goes back to the beginning of the track to make it smoother. You can also hear a heart monitor beeping. The heartbeat slowly fades away and muffled talking take over. This continues until the second shot. The second shot was a continuation of the doctors from the first shot until another doctor appeared. There was only silence at first until stringy music play an \built up until the mother sees her newborn baby. Uplifting music starts to play when the mother touches the glass the child in.  The camera is placed on a Steadicam. In shot 3 the lighting gets brighter with more lights. There is a slow tilt up as the doctor is pushing a mother and her child. Deep eerie music starts to come back as the mother asks "will she be okay".  Transitioning into the last shot using cut on action, the lighting goes to back to lowkey to build suspense an give and eerie vibe. There was a the camera is steady, but the mother gets closer as she wishes to see her child. During the majority of the opening sequence were just simple cuts. 

The Women in the Window

MES- The opening sequence is a prologue of 2 minutes and 54 seconds. There are 20 shots in total. Shot 1 did not have very much light besides the little balls of light which are used to get the viewer to feel lost or unaware of where they are. Shot 2 had brighter lighting most likely to make the eye pop out more during this specific shot. The lighting in this shot makes the scene look more angelic and eye opening. The third to fourth shot is a pan the begins when the light fades away and it look like the scene is slowly dying. In the fifth shot the lighting is lowkey but light slowly creeps in as a stairwell is revealed. The lighting then becomes lowkey key once again in the next shot but brightens up right after the shot shifts to a pan of a room with lighting that looks to be morning. In shot 13, the lighting is lowkey slighting tracking the cat which slowly leads into a pan into a living room with brighter lighting. We then see the woman looking at the man outside bringing in boxes early in the morning. After the back- and forth shots, the camera is looking at the woman's back with the setting going back to the living room with lowkey lighting and a bit of sunlight from the window the women is looking at. 

CIN- In the second shot there is an extreme close up on the character’s eye. Third shot is a landscape shot also known as a long shot. The still camera then goes into a pan still in the same shot. Fourth shot is a slow tilt up to reveal a very tall staircase. Fifth shot is a pan going into the sixth shot with a medium shot as well as a pan. The seventh shot is very brief but is a close up on the woman’s hands grabbing pills. The eighth shot is a continuation of the last shot where the woman takes the pills. Ninth shot is a zoom in on what looks to be a bedroom. Shot 10 is a close up pan of a kid drawing on a chalkboard. Next shot is a close up of the woman letting in the mail carrier for a delivery. Eleventh shot is a medium-close up of the man dropping the package off. Next shot is very brief, but it shows the woman giving the mail carrier the money through a little slot in the door. Shot 13 is POV shot as well as a tracking shot as the camera is in the eyes of the woman, and she is focusing on the new neighbor bringing in boxes. The next shot is a close up of the woman’s facial expression while looking at the neighbor. Then in the next shot there is a long shot of a living room with the woman on the left side. 

Editing- There is a quick cut from the first shot of black with white speckles. From the second shot there is a cut that is so smooth you can barely see it. All the way until the seventh shot I believe. There is a cutting on action from shot 7 to 8 the woman grabs the pills, and it cuts to her swallowing the pills and drinking water. Near the end of the opening scene there is back and forth editing from the woman staring at her neighbors to the shot with the neighbors moving boxes in. For the rest of the opening sequence there were just a series of cuts and quick cuts. 
Sound- In the first shot the camera is twist, turning and spinning in sort of a galaxy setting and near the end you can hear a woman breathing heavily. The breathing gets deeper, and the woman is taking deeper breaths. There is also very high-pitched stringy music in the beginning as well as a subtle wind sound that builds up when the first shot is close to ending. In the second shot the woman gasps then begins breathing with a much faster pace. Third shot you can hear children playing and a deep eerie music that is constantly playing throughout the next few shots. Then the music builds up and stringy instruments jump into the mix making the next shot even more uncomfortable. You can then see and hear a computer beeping. The sounds of the kids come back into play, but this time when they are playing you can hear one little kid that screams. The music continues, but then you can hear a voiceover between a mother and her child. Then the conversation goes to the woman and her husband as the kid runs calling to his dad for a pumpkin. 

Get out

Shonna Lauriston, my fellow group member, completed an opening sequence analysis on the 2017 horror thriller "Get Out". 

The opening sequence is a convectional prologue type using a the flashback method. There are only 2 shots in total. The first shot at the beginning is the camera zooming out. It goes into a long shot as the character moves into the frame to a medium shot as he walks closer to the frame. The camera then does a close up when he is looking for an address which we know from the dialogue of his phone call. The camera then goes back to a medium shot which is used through out the rest of the shot. There is a tracking used as the character get abducted. The character wears a blue shirt with a leather jacket and jeans. A very natural casual outfit. The setting is night time with only streets light giving off light. From the houses in the neighborhood, it appears to be a suburban community. There is non-diegetic sound of crickets to covey it is late at night. As he notices the car stopping by him playing the radio in the car, the music switch from being in scene on the car radio to then transition louder to a voiceover playing the music.  This intensify the tension within the scene. The other person was wearing an all black jacket and mask, masking their identity. The end of shot 1 goes into a extreme long shot.

Cutting on action is used when the abductor is dragging him into the car, this would show what's going on from a different on. 

Gone Girl shot by shot analysis

My portfolio project will be based on the genre thriller. As my group member and I develop the elements of our project, we are researching opening sequences in the thriller genre in order to stay convectional. I completed a shot by shot analysis on the movie 2014 movie "Gone Girl". I observed the convectional techniques and ways that they cause tension in their audience.

Shot 1

A single close-up shot showing the top of the head of a blonde women.

The first scene is a POV shot from man's perspective, it's a shallow focus close up shot of a woman laying down on his chest. The woman looked up at the man, or camera, which is positioned at a higher angle above her. She is showing a very serious expression on her face. This could be interpreted that something is bothering her or something seriously awful will happen. This man is looking down at her. Like she is frail and weak. This contributes to the relationship dynamic: the male has the power or control. She seems to also be wearing comfortable clothing lounge clothing. The scene fades in beginning and out at the end. The prologue begins with an J-cut. From the prologue we know it's a husband talking disturbingly to see the inside of her head or to understand her thoughts. The male's non-diegetic voice over talking about want to break his wife skull open gives the viewer's a psychopathic or a deranged background on the character which contributes to the prologue type of opening. Since prologues conventionally go with flashbacks. It's likely that the scene on the blonde women was a flashback. 

Shot 2

This is an establishing shot of what looks like the sea with the shore that begins with a fade in. This is typically conveys calmness.  Right after an uncomfortable close-up of the woman from scene 1. The opening credit scene names and title fade in and stayed for about 3 seconds to fade out. The credit and title appear in white font. You can see a ship or boat in the distance. They could be on an isolated island or land. The sky appears to be a light blue and pink color, signifying it's either around sunrise or set time. 

Shot 3

A full shot of a building.

Shot 4

A close up low angle of a sign.

Shot 5

Another angled down close-up of a building.

Shot 6

A medium shot of a building.

Shot 7

A wide shot of a house.

Shot 8

A full of a reduced house from the front. 

Shot 9

A full shot of the landscape of a house.

Shot 10 

A close up lifted pavement.

Shot 11

A medium shot of a alley way.

Shot 12

A medium shot of a supply store.

Shot 13

a close up picture of a safety sign and building in the back.

Shot 14

A close up shot of a pillar.

Shot 15

A full shot of a broken down house.

Shot 16

Shots 3-16 are of abandoned buildings in town. The shots emphasizes the abandonment elements of the setting or the characters. 

Shot 17

Shot 17 is a panning shot from the bottom of the clock to the top showing a broken clock that stopped at time 7:55. This could be significant later on into the story. The eerie non-diegetic music gets louder as the sequence continues. This contributes to the tension element.

Shot 18

Scene 18 is a knee-level- shot of a male standing in front of a house looking lost.

Shot 19

scene 19 is a long shot to the left of the man standing in front of the house.

Shot 20

Cuts back to a knee-level shot to the man turning around facing the house like he is looking for something.

Shot 21

He starts to walk towards the house in an extreme long shot.

The last scene is of a man wearing a gray t-shirt and jeans. Gray conveys compromise, neutral, control, practical. His plain clothing or the color of them give no insight or a neutral feeling of who he is. This adds a mysterious effect. Or its just to show how "normal" he really is.

The very low lighting  and lots of shadows throughout the opening conveys tension. The tones used are very dull blues, grays which the audience a very fickle feeling. The light blue tint that is there throughout the whole opening sequence represents the feeling of isolation, passivity, and calmness. Isolation was showcased in the opening the most. It's another element that contributes to the disconnected and mysterious feeling

Music Video project 10/15/2021

     In my Media Studies class, I was assigned to do a music video project. Since it was the beginning of December, the music had to be Christmas related. I was able to choose a group our classmates to work with and ended up with a group of three students. Together we were able to go through the steps of scripting, storyboarding, filming, and editing. 

Script 

    The first day of working on our project involved choosing a song. One of our group member was unable to be there for the brainstorming. My other partner and I had no difficulty choosing a song. We did spend about a day searching through music. We were able to decided on "I'll be home for Christmas" by Bryson Tiller very easily. After figuring out the song, we started scriptwriting. We were using a program called studio binder. We had to watch multiple tutorials in order to figure out how to do the script. Once we figured it out, the first thing we started with we was the setting of the scenes. We already had a brief idea of what we wanted from listening to the song. Next we wrote out all the lyrics we wanted in each scene. Lastly, we had to think about we what we wanted in each scene, what action and transition we wanted to see. This was a bit messy We had many different ideas and directions we could've gone with. The easiest part was the cinematography we wanted to use to created meaning. 

Storyboarding

    With the storyboarding we ran into an issue. We were originally instructed to use studio binder but were unable to transfer all of our scenes to the storyboard using the free subscription. We had to go online and download a template of the storyboard layout. We ended up with 9 shots in our storyboard. Doing the storyboard was no problem at all. We just put everything we already figured out we wanted in out script into the storyboard except with a bit more detail. We had to upload photos of the type of shots we wanted  so we could visually see it and recreate it. Storyboarding a very simple step in the process of creating a music video.

Filming

    The filming process took two days. I was an actor in the video along with another one of my partners. My acting was awful and the director we appointed in our group hated it. We had the music set up so we could hear it and lip-sync while filming. We also constantly pulled up the script and storyboard to make sure we were still following along with what we planned. To me, the process wasn't difficult. To the direct of the group, they were probably stressed out. This part to me was the most enjoyable. I liked being outside of the classroom and being filmed. We were even able to even help out other classmates with their shots. 

Editing

    The editing process was challenging. We had to use a new editing software called WeVideo. It was a difficult for my editor to use. The shots we took weren't lining up with the music. They were cut off too quickly. We had to go back and refilm a shot. We also had to cut out the pauses with no lyrics he took within the song. After all of the difficulty, we were finished with the editing in two days. I hated this part. I thought we weren't going to finish in time. 

Reflection

I enjoyed this project. It wasn't very hard. I loved working with my group. I'm very good at creating meaning and storyboarding. I like to work on developing the story and plan. Being in the video wasn't hard either. I just wasn't good at it. The video come out better than I expected. 

Editing

 For my portfolio I've started to research editing software. During my search, I managed to narrow down my with top online video editing packages ordering them from 3 to 1, my last to first choice.

-Accessible from anywhere(web based)

-Ability to lay multiple tracks (both audio and video)

-Ability to strip or mute audio and natural sounds from video.

-Ability to collaborate with other users

-Tutorial and available for help navigating/working the worksite. 

-User- friendly

- Free templates

3. Openshot.org

I first started with openshot.org. The website requires for you to make a download before viewing the software. Unfortunately since I conducted my research at school, I was unable to download and view the software. Having to make a download in order to use the editing software could be inconvenient for me. They provided tutorials on the website. I watched a few videos and viewed the screenshots, analyzing the layout of the software. I decided the website looked a bit too complicated for me. It seems advanced for a beginner to use. I would have to look for a tutorial to figure out anything. They also included a features list. Since I couldn't view the software myself, it was nice to see all of the things I would be able to do for my videos. In the features list, it said that users are able to lay multiple video tracks and audio, adjust each audio channel individually, user friendly, has title templates and transitions but I'm unsure if they are free. I wasn't able to find out if they allow team collaboration. It appears to have majority of what I want in an editing software. I'm still unsure how easy the website actually is for me to use. The download is a big downfall for me. I do like the feature the features and the (maybe) free templates. After further conduct my research of the other sites, I decided this website wasn't a good fit for me.

2. Kapwing.com

I next researched Kapwing.com. I'm able to access it from the web and toy around with the software. I absolutely love being able to see the software and exploring the different features so I can familiarize myself. They have lots of tutorials and templates. No features lists but from playing around with the software I'm able to see all the different transitions and titles that are available. It meets my requirements with the audio and the tracks. I love how user friendly it is. I feel like it would be a great fit for me and easy to work with.

3.Clipchamp.com

This is my number 1 choice in editing software. It has everything Kapwing has like the resource page of tutorial, allowed me to view and experiment with the software. The reason I choice this though was because my fellow classmates are all choice clip champ. In order to work in teams it will be easier for everyone to have the same editing software. It meet all of my requires. I enjoys exploring the website. I think this is a great choice for me and my portfolio.