Existing Film Opening Research

From the film 'Se7en', 1995.

The opening to this film uses lots of extreme close up shots to let viewers have an idea of the genre and the themes of the film right from the beginning. By using multiple extreme close ups, the viewers only see a part of what is happening; they cannot see what is happening around the shot which adds a sense of mystery, keeping the audience guessing and interested right from the start. They know something is happening outside of the shot as there are shadows moving around in the shot, such as 8 seconds into the clip, and parts out of focus moving, at 29 seconds into the clip we see part of an unfocused hand turning the page of the book. The shots are quite short and some clips are so quick they appear to flash so the audience don't get to see them well. There is some overlay of shots used, where an overlay of text appears over the main shot or where we see two shots playing over each other at once.

From watching this clip, I can see that there is a very strict colour scheme, only sticking to neutral colours such as blacks, browns, greys and whites. This suggest simplicity or something quite natural, which relates to the story as this film is about a serial killer who targets people who commit the seven deadly sins - which are, nowadays, quite natural emotions/things people do. About a third and two thirds of the way, the opening also uses the colour red which suggests blood, danger or death will occur at around these times in the film.

The text telling us the name of the film, actors and directors etc appears on a separate black background or a dark area of a shot. The text is white and the typography used looks like it has been hand written. By having the text in contrasting colours it makes it clear for the audience to read and obvious to see when watching the film. The titles are quite evenly spaced out and evenly timed which make the opening credits flow. The title of the film appears for a bit longer than and before the names of actors and directors as it is important to let the viewers know what film they are watching.

The music sets the mood of the film as being quite eerie yet is has a defined beat. At 1:12 the music builds up and more sounds are added and layered which could suggest there will be action happening later on in the film after ideas and things build up. There are no lyrics in this opening which does not distract the viewers from the shots however there is one line at the end of the opening which i make out to be 'You put me closer to God.' This relates to the storyline as God does not want people to sin and the 7 Deadly Sins are the main or most common sins that people commit.