Analysing students' opening sequences of Thrillers- Invite

Invite

 Johnny Hawes (2011)

 Camera

Mid-shot 

Canted angle

Aerial Shot

One of the first shots the audience experiences is a mid-shot of a person opening the gate. This perhaps connotes the character's importance due to the audience being forced to look at his upper body. As well as this, he is the first character who's face we see and further strengthens the connotations of his importance. 

A canted angle is then used to suggest that the character is rather 'odd' or disorientated in terms of his thoughts, despite his actions looking rather normal and innocent. The audience may expect a psychological thriller as using this camera technique certainly appears commonly in such a sub-genre.

Lastly, an aerial shot is demonstrated when the character is taking coffee out of the bag with a teaspoon. It is possibly used as a reminder that the character is performing day-to-day, normal tasks, adding to the question of the character's mental state, as above.

Black and White 

Sans Serif, teal font with shadow

Editing

The black and white filter used only when the character walking through the gate is seen; the suggestion is that he has something to do with the past as 'black and white' has connotations of nostalgia (films produced before the 1970s were in black and white). The expression "...is history" could perhaps be appropriate here, especially because it's revealed in the end that the character had died.

Furthermore, text appears in corners of the frame in a bright blue/ teal sans serif  font with a dropped shadow to make them 'pop out'. They also break typical thriller conventions as the look rather childish and like pop-art, however, I am not thoroughly sure about the reason behind this.

Matching a cross-cut

As well as this, cross-cutting eventually matches up two scenes and creates an illusion of two dimensions coming together. This is particularly interesting because it almost 'intertwines' the characters' fates subconciously. The audience knows (without realising) that the two characters have a close connection within the narrative of the film. This is because the edit is rather inconspicuous and is done without the audience really noticing it due to the fluency of the camera work. 

Sound

A slow crescendo is used by producing a beat similar to a snare but rather synthesised. This then reveals a layer of base once the protagonist takes a mug from the rack. This to me seems rather comedic and suggests that the crime which takes place involves a sadistic approach to which the criminal relates to, perhaps indicating that there is some sort of psychological aspect to the narritive. Of course, this also means that this opening sequences conforms to typical conventions of thrillers (often themed around a psychologically disturbed protagonist).

 Mise-en-scene

This opening sequence contains several spects which make it a typical thriller opening sequence. One of these is through the use of costume, closely tying in with representations. For an example, the victim is introduced wearing casual-wear including a jacket, unbuttoned shirt and jeans. This suggests that he is comfortable in the environment he is in as he doesn't feel the need to dress up as people involved in business tend to do in thrillers. This however is contradicted by the choice of location.

Outside location

The fact that the space of fliming the victim's scene is set outside, is interesting because an outside environment has connotations of coldness and unfamiliarity. This could put ourvictim in a position of vulnerableness and therefore sets up the notion that he is easily killed or inflicted violence on. 

Kitchen environment

A direct juxtoposition to this is the location of the criminal, being a kitchen. This environment seems very warm and inviting. He's obviously comfortable in performing daily morning tasks such as making coffee.

Coffee

This leads into the point that the kitchen is an area often utalised in the morning, especially for making breakfast such as toast and coffee as implied in the sequence, therefore, allowing the audience to interpret the setting of the sequence in the morning, which makes a rather sinister time for the commiting of crime, especially as serious as murder.    

Another prop which is significant in this sequence is the gun, which is placed on the kitchen counter.  the use of firearms is a typical convention found in the thriller genre, therefore it is appropriately used in this opening sequence.

Gun

Overall, I don't particaulary favour this opening sequence due to the editing that is used to insert the text. To me, the teal blue and the font makes it rather comic and silly considering the genre of the film. As well as this, I do not like the opposing colour schemes, a scene being black and white, another being full colour.

However, the opening sequence conforms to the conventions of the thriller genre which allows the audience to quickly establish the genre of the film before they get too far into it. As well as this, the range of camera angles make it very interesting to watch, though it could be considered that the canted angle shots are rather over-used. 

Ed and I will sure be careful to not over-use certain shot types or break too many thriller conventions to prove ineffective.