Analysis of the Opening to Vertigo

The film opens with the title sequence played over a series of black and white close ups of a face. This creates an immediate sense of ambiguity as the audience is unaware of whose face this is and why it is being shown and introduces a common theme in thrillers, suspense. The close ups show the person's lips quivering and their eyes flickering back and forth, clearly displaying their fear and therefore showing to the audience that there is a potential danger. At the same time the music parallels the visuals as it is quiet and creepy, with a synchronous crescendo as each title appears adding emphasis to them. The shots are all side lit from the right, creating dark shadows across the persons' face, further adding to the feeling of the unknown in the opening. The shot the becomes tinted a red colour which has connotations of blood and danger. The eye widens, again in synchronisation with the music, reinforcing the idea that this person is terrified. There is then a graphic match cut to a series of colourful spirals, a distinct contrast to black background they are shown on. This change in the opening mirrors that the audience is now no longer examining the external appearance of this woman but instead the inner workings of her mind. The shapes are continually spinning, introducing the idea of dizziness which is commonly associated with Vertigo. This opening establishes straight away that Vertigo is a psychological thriller and also shows it will focus on identity, which is often a key convention of the thriller genre.

Analysis on the opening to Brighton Rock

The film opens with a very dark shot, only top lit by a single light. There is a several non dietetic sounds placed over the top of the shot, building the tensions as the camera zooms inwards. The shot then changes to a close up of a man in a phone booth, we hear his heavy breathing, straight away establishing him as scared. We can see from his old fashioned cap and coat that this film is likely set some time in the 20th Century. Similarly to the first shot it is very dark, though this shot is side lit, creating a heavy shadow across the man's face and leaving a third of the shot in complete darkness, further adding to the mystery. We then see a wide of the phone box, the dramatic soundtrack starts to crescendo and we hear the man become increasingly frantic. Two figures then appear, they are back lit making them appear as silhouettes, shrouding their identity from the audience. The editing style then quickly 

changes from a very slow speed to fast as we see a series of close ups, ending with a brightly lit shot of a knife, highlighting the danger of the situation and again establishing the period as it is a knife not a gun that is being used. The audience is then shown a several close up of knives, in each shot, light seems to appear as the knife is shown, a contrast to the otherwise dark surroundings. The action then begins to cross cut between the fight and to a mid shot of another man running towards the action. This second shot is

slightly shaking creating the sense the audience is there with him. The shot becomes brighter and brighter as he approaches the scene of the fight as it becomes more obvious he will not make it there in time to save his friend's life. As he stops there is a shot reverse shot showing the eyeline match between him and one of the attackers. We then again here loud breathing sound over the shot and the music turns from dramatic to orchestral emphasising his horror and sadness. The zooms into his face, building the audience's emotional connection to him and establishing him as a main character as the shot fades to black.

Analysis of the Opening to Memento

The film open with a very long close up of a polaroid photo, containing a bloody scene, immediately linking this film to the horror and thriller genre. The music backing it remains constant thought the long shot, classical and almost mournful. The soundtrack is slightly contrapuntal as it juxtaposes the horrific scene in the photograph. The titles appear over the single long shot of the photo in bold, blue text, standing out very distinctly against the blood red.  The cold blue colour paired with the formal looking font off the text, hint at the ominous nature of what has happened. The audience then start to realise that the shot has been played in reverse as the bloody scene begins to fade away slowly, leaving a white polaroid, as if nothing was ever there in the first place. The shot then changes for the first time and we see a close up of the photo being taken, the shot then pans up, revealing the photographers face. The music diminuendos and becomes erie as we here the loud diegetic sound of the photo being taken. The camera then hovers on a close up of his face, building the audience's emotional connection with him. We immediately see that is is splattered with blood and scared, linking him with the likely murder that has taken place. There is then a series of high speed editing close up shots, establishing the horrific state of the room. The evident increase of pace here begins to rapidly build the tension and hints that what has happened is about to be revealed. We then see a close up of a bullet, conveying that it was a murder. The audience is then shown a mid shot of the dead body, right before we see the murder take place in reverse. We briefly see the victim's face though not for long enough to identify him, also we hear a shout conveying that there was some kind of struggle

Inception Opening Essay

Explore the use of film language for effect in the opening sequence of Inception. How does the director engage the audience?

The film opens with a title sequence accompanied by loud dramatic music, already beginning to build tension before the film has begun. As the film starts this music is juxtaposed by the sound of the sea along with a brightly lit open frame shot of the waves. The audience then sees a close up of a man, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, lying on the shore amongst the waves, establishing him as the protagonist of the film. He is evidently very weak and injured which can be seen from his scarred face and pained body language as he struggles to sit up. Water droplets collect on the lens creating the idea that the viewer is a part of the situation. The camera then cross cuts between close up eye line matches of DiCaprio and wide picturesque shots of the beach. We see children playing on the sand, a contrast to the usual conventions of the thriller. The children are playing happily and dressed in colourful clothing, a distinct difference to everyone else in the opening, highlighting them as out of place. Although, because of the placing of the eye line match either side of the shot of the children, it is hinted that they may not really be there and are just simply a figment of his imagination. The soundtrack becomes quiet and eerie hinting at the dreamlike state that DiCaprio is in. This is reinforced by the very bright shots, some slightly out of focus to show how he is not fully conscious and taking in his surroundings. The series of opening shots creates an immediate sense of intrigue as it leaves the audience with the unanswered questions of how and why the man came to be in this situation.

 We see a shot of DiCaprio’s body from above, a gun pressed to his back, the high angle shot helping to portray him as helpless. There is then a shot of this new man holding the gun from a low angle making him seem powerful, he is carefully placed in the centre of the mid shot so he is directly in front of the the sun, blocking out the light. He is dressed in a military style uniform and this coupled with his gun gives the audience an immediate idea of his nature, juxtaposing the beach and the cheerful children from before. The gun he holds is the first proper hint to the audience that this film is a thriller, as guns are often seen as iconography of the thriller genre. We hear the first dialogue of the film which is in Japanese and then see a wide shot across the beach showing us a very traditional Japanese style building, helping to establish the location of the film. This wide shot also shows that the children from before have now disappeared, backing up the idea that they were not real.

The location then changes to inside the building, which like the outside, contains an obvious Japanese design. There is a strong orange tint on all of the shots of the inside and they are brightly top lit by an array of lanterns, adding to the Asian feel of the scene. The first shot we see of the interior is through the door, displaying the backs of three men, masking their identity and so building mystery. There is no lighting coming from outside the room making the men appear as silhouettes and drawing the audience’s attention to the extensive décor of the room. The shot slowly zooms closer towards the centre man, switching to a close up, though his face still remains hidden, further increasing tension. The man is positioned in the centre of the shot, at the head of a long table and dressed in a formal suit, all hinting that he is man of a high status and importance. We see him reach for his wine glass but then after a match on action close up of the spinning top being placed on the table he retracts his hand, this could be an example of motivated editing, indicating to the audience that the spinning top is of greater importance than it would at first seem.

 The shot then changes to DiCaprio being hauled into the room accompanied by a non diegetic synchronous crash, grabbing the audience’s attention. We see from his body language, hanging limply without even the strength to lift himself, that DiCaprio is clearly very lifeless at the moment. His clothes are oversized and old, contrasting the pristine military uniform of the men dragging him. The shot then jumps forward in time slightly to DiCaprio sitting at the table, opposite the suited man, eating some unappealing looking food. The shot pans up slowly from the table first showing his reflection before the image changes to an over the shoulder shot. This shot beings with a long focus pull which along with the low speed editing in the scene, links back to the idea that the opening is in fact taking place inside a dream. We hear the suited man speak, looking towards DiCaprio whose eyes stay fixed downwards, not meeting the suited man’s gaze and staying silent. This conveys the idea that the suited man is in the position of power in this situation and has the control over what is going to happen next. We then see a close up of the suited man moving his hand from the gun to the spinning top, again indicating that it has some kind of hidden power or meaning. As he picks up the spinning top there is a close up with a very shallow depth of field, making the man out of focus, creating the idea that the spinning top is more powerful than even him. As the opening ends the background music crescendos over the top of a long close up of DiCaprio, where he looks up for the first time, straight into the camera, establishing the audience’s emotional connection to him for the rest of the film.

            

Inception Shot Log

The Conventions of the Thriller

• Aims to create suspense and tension, putting the audience in jeopardy
• Frequently uses busy urban or suburban areas 
• Violence, often guns, will be a key aspect
• Often includes large well known organisations such as the police, army or Government 
• The main protagonist will solve the problem at hand which no one else will be able to
• The film will involve a rational explanation instead of the supernatural
• The identity of the antagonist is often hidden from the audience 
• The protagonist is normally male, often an outsider from society
• It will have a dramatic climax which the anticipation will build to 
• There is a lot of low key lighting adding to mystery and sense of the unknown 
• There is often a large amount of dark shadows and silhouettes 

Reflection on the First Practical Tak

Last week in a group of three we where give our first practical task, to make a film called "The Package", we where told it had to involve suspense and put the audience jeopardy. It began well, with our group planning out what we where going to do. We created a brief list of the shots we wanted to film and a storyboard.

Our first lesson filming we attempted to film out outside though after we finished filming our group member who was on camera realised she had not been filming for the whole session and so we would have to repeat everything that we had done. While at first this was frustrating it meant the next day we where able to film the shots quickly and easily as we knew exactly what it was we wanted to achieve.

After these shots the rest of the filming went smoothly, though we did have some issues with sound as the Digital Audio Recorder would pick up a lot of the background noise such as the strong wind. Also as there where only three of us and we were not experienced with using the sound recorders, when two of us where in the shot it was hard for one person to film with the camera and record sound. I'm sure though as we become more experienced with the equipment this will become easier and more manageable.

With the editing we managed to work well together, discussing how we wanted to cut each shot and agreeing as a group. The sound was more difficult as we had not recorded external audio for every shot and we had not experienced syncing are audio and visual before.

Overall I think I learnt a lot from this task, if only to always make sure the camera and sound are recording when I want them to be. I also improved my skills using the DAC and then editing with separately recorded sound.