kieran's 4 thriller openings

Research and analysis of thriller film openings

BLADE RUNNER

Blade runner starts with writing scrolling on a screen which vaguely gives you an idea of what's going on during the time period it's set. It then fades in from black to a extreme long shot on a city with tall buildings at night, this is effective as it makes the flames/explosions from the rooftops more clear and stand out more. Still during this shot a flying car flies from the distance straight past the screen, this is the first thing that implies that this film is set in the future. During this shot the camera pans to the right, but very slowly, like it's building up suspense and creating tension as the audience at this point does not know what is going on and are wondering why explosions are coming from the rooftops. After 5 seconds of this build up, a bolt of lightning strikes from the sky, which may unsettle the audience as they wouldn't expect this. Straight after this it cuts to a long shot of the city, which enables you to have a closer look on what's happening on these buildings, but once again it's kept a mystery to audience on what's going on. Here though it's clearer that these are definitely flames as a ball of fire emerges from beneath to the center of the shot. Straight after this quite space like - dramatic music emerges and becomes quite noticeable. The music sounds heroic which would make sense as this flying car flies back into the shot and back towards where it originally came from, as it flies off a piece of non-diegetic sound, which sounds like a sparkle is used giving this car a good feeling about it. As this car flies into the distance it cuts to a extreme close up on someones eye with the flames reflecting on it, this gives you the feeling that everything else you've seen before this has come from his point of view and he's watching in the distance of what's going on. His eyes look quite blood shot giving this sense that he's upset, meaning what's happening is bad. It then cuts back to the extreme long shot of the buildings, but this time the colours look a lot more natural as before it looked very desaturated. The next shot is a long shot of several of these cars entering this type of ship/building and then it cuts straight back to the extreme close up of the eye, this makes this ship/building seem very important, as this persons eye doesn't even blink or move from this scene making the audience feel eager to know what it is.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

The opening scene of 'The Dark Knight Rises' begins with credits, but in the back ground and underpinned behind these credits shows someone researching the 'batman'. The first you see of this is a close up on ink being dripped into water and the water rippling, this all looks quite distorted which may unsettle the audience and at this point you don't really have any clue of what's going on until the next shot where it cuts to a close up of someone stabbing at the batman logo which they had created during the shot before the current one. It then cuts back to this symbol once it's been sculptured and it zooms in on it, underneath it you can see newspaper articles about the batman which gives you this impression that it's someone researching him. Then it flashes twice back and forth from credits to a picture of Bruce Wayne (The Batman)  being scalpel'd with tears out of the pictures face, in this you can also see smoke which shows maybe they're burning other photos of him. So this gives you a feeling that this person is out to get him and is the 'antagonist' of this film. It then cuts to short shots of other innocent characters from previous movies photos being pinned up on walls and being burned and examined. Combined with the dramatic music which is building up, it creates a lot of tension as you can tell that throughout this film something is going to happen to all of these people you just don't know when and what is going to happen to them. The lighting throughout is dark and the colours are very desaturated which sets the dark mood within the opening.

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

The Butterfly Effect starts by fading from black to
someone opening a note pad with a pencil in their hand, as they start writing high pitch nursery rhyme like music starts to play. After a few seconds the camera begins to start twitching and becomes distorted, then fades to black with credits. This makes the audience feel confused as they have no idea on what's going on. It then fades in with someone running towards the camera, and then fades to a bookcase, and this same man running and rustling through the books, this makes you feel like there's something important inside one of those books. Also the colour changes as before it's dark colours and then when it gets to the bookshelf they're really quite bright. When he's looking through the books it's all been fast forwarded just like in the next shot where it fades to him looking through his bed, this is used to represent time and show that he's looking for something for a long time and everywhere. As after this it's also quite cuts of him pulling all the books out and literally turning his room 'up side down', for example as he throws his mattress off his bed. So you get the feeling why is he doing this? And that what ever he's looking for must be very important. It keeps on repeating these sequence of shots but slows down which represents him giving up hope, until it cuts to a shot of him finding a box under the bed which he finds this book in, he sits down to go and read it and as we see when it cuts to his point of view, it's the book the person had been writing in, then it warps and becomes distorted again. So it gives you this repetitive feeling and being a member of the audience you would have no clue on what's going on. Then at the end it cuts to a butterfly with the title written on it.

THE SHINING

The shining starts with a fade from black to a natural scene, it starts with a tracking shot through a river and then fades to a tracking shot from a birds eye view on a moving car, but no one else is in sight. So this gives off a feeling that someone is following that person in the car. It then fades to another extreme long tracking shot which follows the car but this is closer to the ground and the scene has changed which enforces a shift in time. Even though everything looks so normal it's odd as you still don't see anyone else, until 56 seconds in you see the shadow of a helicopter which shows that this car is being watched and then you get introduced to a feeling that this tracking view of this car maybe something a lot more serious to this pretty innocent opening it was given, but you never know if it's following it or not. Which then lets you have your own interpretation on what has happened here as you aren't given any information or any idea on what has actually happened.