Planning opening credits - Miss Georgiou

"In a motion picture, television program, or video game, the opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show." - Wikipedia 

   

Opening credits are important as it introduces the film. It Informs the audience on what type of film they are going to be watching. By including different features in the opening credits, to change the audience's emotions, depending on the type of film genre it is.  

In this post I will be analysing opening credits in thriller films, as this will be a plan for my group and I to make our opening credits for our thriller opening. 

                                         

The film 'Se7en' has given me inspiration for my own thriller opening credits. There were a lot of good features used in these opening credits that created suspense, tension and enigma. 

Font

In this clip you can see that the font is shaky/jerky and hand written, it is also unclear to see after it flashes/blinks. As this film is a thriller, we the audience already know that there is a villain. So this font signifies to the audience that there is someone who is doing something involving writing which is quite unclear to see, maybe meaning it's hard to find the person doing the writing.

Colour

The background of the opening credits is black whilst the writing is white. This contrast between black and white, shows a comparison of good and evil. Which could either signify that the villain has split personalities or that there is a villain which is evil and a victim or hero involved that is good. 

Another main colour in this clip is red, there are some flashes of red. Which to me signify blood, pain and evil.

Conventions of a thriller

In the opening credits we see a lot of conventions of a typical thriller, firstly, we see that the identity of the character doing all these things is unknown. The characters identity is hidden, this creates enigma. The reason why it creates mystery is because the story the opening credits moving images is trying to make is unknown to the audience and slightly baffles our understanding. 

Another convention is lighting. The type of lighting used in this clip is low-key lighting, low key lighting also connects to the point about mystery. But low-key lighting also adds more suspense to the scene as the dark lighting also creates shadows, again not making the characters identity clear for the audience to see, also making the setting come across as scary. 

In the opening credits, different editing techniques are used. Such as fast cutting, wipe, jump cuts and dissolve film editing. Fast cutting is the editing technique were there a several consecutive shots that are then linked together very quickly, It can be used to show information quickly or can imply a lot of energy/chaos. Fast cutting was used throughout the opening credits, in se7en fast cutting added a lot of energy to the opening credits. However, It also informed the audience about what type of thriller it was going to be and showed us the theme that is going to be in the film se7en. Fast cutting is typical to the thriller genre.

 A jump cut is two sequential shots of the same subject that are taken from camera positions that only vary slightly. Jump cuts were also used in the opening credits. This is used to give a jumping in time effect, all this does is just add a sense of speed to the sequence of events. Then making the audience feel more excited by the opening credits, making them want to continue watching the film.

 Lastly for the editing, I noticed the use of a dissolve effect. The dissolve effect is the gradual transition from one image to another. This is used right at the beginning frame of the clip, to introduce the image the pictures dissolved/fade into one another to reveal the next shot. There was also the use of a wipe effect. The wipe type of editing is a type of film transition where one shoot replaces another by or travelling from one side of the frame to another with special shape. This wipe effect was very sudden and that created excitement/tension.

There were quite a lot of camera shots/angles used in these opening credits. To name a few that were used; High angle and eye level extreme and normal close ups. These close ups were used to really focus on that object/character, to emphasise the things the mysterious character was doing. For the audience I feel that these shots and extreme close ups, with a fast timing of the shots, really increased the pace of the scene. Giving the audience a high level of anticipation which is conventional in the thriller genre.

There were also quite a few images our eyes couldn't see, due to blurry images and really quick flashing images. I had to pause the film to see that these shots/images were there. This is conventional to the thriller genre as doing this adds adrenaline. Therefore, the audience wouldn't want to take there eyes off the film incase they miss anything, again this is creating excitement and enigma.

The last convention to analyse is the sound that was used, this sound is classed as 'suspense music' It created tension, it increased and slowed down in pace, changing the audiences emotions and moods. This also gave the audience an ultra-heightened expectation of the film.

     
 In my own thriller I have decided to use white font against a black background to symbolise good and evil. My title will also be white and bold with a image connecting to the story. This is to create mystery for the audience. The opening credits font will also be handwritten to make it again connect with the theme of the story. I will include similar conventions to se7en. 

      
The first convention I would like to use is mirrors, mirrors create suspense and can make a scene more dramatic. It also represents the reflection of someones soul. It can also represent a characters inner evil/darkness; This can make the audience feel uneasy. 

  Another convention would be low-key lighting, low-key lighting creates tension and enigma. Paired with shadows creates a very eerie atmosphere which again represents evil and darkness within a character (typically the villain)

  I will also use quick cuts, as I said about se7en quick editing increases pace and excitement for the audiences and can also play on there emotions. Quick editing will add adrenaline to my thriller opening. 

 
Tension music, tension music is as big as a part to the thriller to any other conventions. Tension music also creates mystery with the intense rhythm, terrifying the audience of what is to come in the thriller sequence. 

Stairs are another convention that are generally put into the thriller genre, stairs create a division between time and space, stairs are usually used in psychological thrillers - as our sub-genre is psychological I would like to include this convention in my own thriller. This all relates back to the iconography of thrillers such as (shadows, bars on windows etc)