Analysis of thriller opening sequences


Lucy-Opening 5 minutes:

The slow paced, mysterious non diegetic soundtrack along with the dark blue colours and long shot showing the constant division of cells creates a creepy atmosphere within the audience. These few simple elements allow the audience to make the assumption that right now the setting is inside the body of something because of the cell divisions that are taking place however the eerie colours and the non-diegetic soundtrack used still leave the audience wondering what is going on?

The ambient sounds heard by the audience alongside the establishing shot of the natural landscape showing a monkey drinking water from a lake shows the audience the early, more natural stages of humanity. This is then followed be a tracking montage of images showing the evolution of mankind. The montage concentrates on how busy the world is today as shown by the quiet and serene diegetic sounds that were heard in the first scene as compared to the city where the diegetic sounds are much louder, for example: car horns. It is this along with the voiceover of the monotone woman with very serious dialogue that gives the audience the idea of how the woman speaking thinks about the world today.

The instant cut from this montage to a close up shot of the American woman with an ignorant facial expression in the foreground, along with the signs in the background with writing in Chinese shows that the voiceover heard previously is linked to this woman. Her facial expression, showing her day dreaming perhaps suggests that what was being said during the montage was what she was thinking whilst the other man spoke to her. As she then tries to walk away from the man once his dialogue showed that he did not know the content of the briefcase that he wanted her to deliver so desperately, a two shot shows him pulling her back along with persuasive dialogue from the man however a high pitched, more shocked and resentful body language from the woman showed the audience that she did not want to do this job. This may foreshadow danger that is yet to come in the film and engages the audience, filling them with shock and disturbance because despite her resentment and refusal, he forces her to do the job.



The Maze Runner-Opening 5 minutes:

The loud, diegetic sound along with the completely blacked out screen instantly grabs the audience’s attention as they are unaware of what is actually happen because all they can hear is the loud clanking of an elevator shaft moving very quickly. The sudden diegetic sound the male character makes allows the audience to understand that he is struggling to breath shocks the audience because it is such a sudden and extreme change in diegetic sound. His fast and heavy breathing along with the long shot showing the weak but desperate body language from the young man trapped in a cage type, moving shaft shows that he is terrified and is panicking. This intrigues the audience as it makes them wonder whether his attempt of escape is going to better his terrible situation.

The change of lighting (low key to high key) shows the audience that his scary journey in this cage had come to an end. The opening of the cage showing daylight which is then followed by a medium close up of the mans confused facial expression and wet costume suggests that this man has been taken and something traumatic has happened to him which is why he is left in such a concerning state.  The low angle long shot then showing a group of men looking down at this man who is in this cage and laughing as though he is an animal that has been captured shows the power difference that stands between these two different types of characters. They look down at him because he is new to the land that they have been living on. This is something that helps keep the audience engaged because they still want to figure out who these new men that have been introduced are, where this man has been taken and what all of these people are here for; a variety of different questions start to build up in the audiences heads.

No comments:

Post a Comment