Thriller Opening Sequence Notes

The first opening sequence we viewed was from Die Hard 4.0. For this, I mainly observed the camerawork. I noticed that throughout the sequence, there were remarkably few establishing shots, despite featuring quite a varied amount of locations. The first shot, served as both an establishing shot, and using a long sweeping track, to a mid shot of the character, which served to tell more about the character, as a university student, than the location itself or its place in the narrative. Most of the rest of the opening sequence was composed of close ups of characters on computers and extreme close ups with lots of very fast movements like tracks and zooms of their computer screens. This serves to create an intense and hectic atmosphere to the hacking and the rest of the opening sequence. The nature of the opening sequence changes upon an establishing shot, and a location change, to the FBI headquarters in Washington DC. From here on, there are fewer camera movements, and are much slower, with more medium shots and long shots to show the larger number of characters in one shot. However, when the computers are hacked, a lot of close up reaction shots are used to show the surprise of the FBI characters at this event.

The Interpreter was the second extract we saw. This extract was almost completely different, with the camera still for most of the first half of the extract, composed of mainly very long shots with the main character being the only movement in shot. It also used focus pulls, which adds to the slow feel of this opening. Also, the character walks quite slowly and casually, implying that this is a normal action, removing most of the tension from the opening sequence. She is the only one in this shots, however, which implies a sense of isolation, coupled with the night time setting, creates a slightly suspicious atmosphere as well. When she overhears the conversation, the tension builds as she runs. An enigma is also used as the audience cannot hear this conversation, so what the main character overhears is a mystery that we assume will be revealed, making the audience interested in finding out just what made her so shocked. Also, as she leaves, the camerawork repeats the same shots and angles that were used as she came in, only with more camera movement following her running, increasing the pace and tension in the sequence.

The last extract, from The Usual Suspects, mostly focuses on its use of enigmas. The camerawork in this sequence is, like The Interpreter, very slow, but also uses a lot of close ups, only really showing the location through establishing shots about halfway through the sequence, this helps add to the mystery, but also creating a more personal feel with the dying man, despite knowing little about him. This, along with the fact that we do not see the face of the other man leads us to side with the dying man, and also be confused as who the other man, a use of enigma. Also, the very end of the opening sequence, a police interview, seems to be taking place at a completely different time to the previous scene, leading to more confusion as to what is happening.

Narrative Idea Generation

In this lesson, we were given post it notes, with a short synopsis of the storyline of thriller films, and we were asked to come up with our own thriller ideas, based on a more modern concept, integrating some aspect of modern technology into the storyline.

My idea was based on the storyline from the film KNOW1NG, but instead, the main character receives a phone call, with no one on the other end from a unknown and seemingly incorrect phone number with too many numbers. However, a day after he receives the phone call, a disaster occurs, a bus crash. Soon after, he receives another phone call, from a different number, but still incorrect. Again, a day later, another disaster occurs. Deeming this to be far from coincidence he starts viewing the strange phone numbers again, noticing that the first phone number began with the number of the bus. He then spends an entire night trying to decipher the first numbers, comparing them to the newspaper articles detailing the events. In the morning, after staying up all night obsessing with the numbers, he receives yet another phone call. This time, he realises he can take action and rushes to both decipher the possible answers to the code and to investigate how the coded details relate to real life and the potential disaster in coming.

Response to Criticism

I think that both the criticisms are very positive and fair, although maybe not as harsh as perhaps I would have viewed my own work.
I agree with what both comments said about how our conventions are portrayed in the clip, through mise en scene such as the briefcase, and our attempt to create a contrast between the two characters and suggest things about them through the costuming.
I also agree with James' criticism that the location could have been much more secretive for the genre, and for the final exercise, this is something we will certainly take note of. I agreed with his criticism of the lighting as well, as admittedly, we didn't put very much effort into the lighting, as it is hard to achieve suitable lighting in a lesson due to the set up time and the limited amount of time we had for the preliminary exercise. Nonetheless, we shall take note of the criticism and attempt to use more appropriate lighting in the final exercise.
I am happy with the other comments that compliment our use of techniques and fulfillment of the exercise's requirements, although I do believe that we did break the 180 degree rule slightly too often. The effect of the breaking is relatively minor, but I feel that if we did the same for the final piece of work, it would probably detract from our grade, so in future, we will have to try harder to keep in with both the conditions of the exercise and basic continuity editing.
Overall, I am pleased with our comments and how positive they seem to be, and I look forward to the final project, in which we will try much harder to refine and improve on our work.