In the opening sequence of Se7en (1995) Fincher we begin by going through what appears to be a daily routine of Detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) whereby he starts off reading an old tattered book. Throughout the whole film there is not much light and most scenes are dark and eerie. The opening scene is no different the dark and suspicious nature of the room is from the low key lighting. Throughout this scene we can hear voices, dogs barking in the background from outside mainly shouting these are all examples of diegetic sounds and allow the audience to guess that he is probably in the city. There is another noise coming from this scene, the screech or a high pitch static noise a similar sound ti that of someone screaming so immediately it adds a dangerous feel to the scene.
The title credits add a tone of suspense and uses loads of close ups to help add the suspense. The first close up is of some flicking through a book however the focus is primarily on the book and the background is blurred out so we cannot see who is reading the book Adding an element of mystery. Switching from one scene to the next very quickly keeping the audience of the edge of their seats, next we see the end of someones fingers as they scrape away the skin from their fingertips adding a gruesome edge to the title scene making the audience wonder who it was and why they were doing it, everyone wants to find out what is going to happen next and continue watching. We then see the same person picking up another book. The whole scene uses dull colours like black, white, grey and brown and then towards the end there is red, everybody associates red with the colour of blood and danger, and idea that is dominant in thrillers and this specific film.
The camera work in the opening titles are amazing, the constant, quick movement from one clip to the next keeping it at a high pace adds suspense and thrill. All the shots are either high angle shots looking down giving us a point of view of someone,they are blurred out or even just shows small glimpses of hands. Throughout the title scene the viewer is almost begging to know who is doing all this and what exactly are they are doing. A great thriller always keeps the audience on the edge of their seat and asking questions this does exactly that. You get the idea that most of these aren't that important, because you never get a long time to look at them and they are always very confusing.
The editing in this sequence is very fast paced to add suspense, transitioning from one clip to the next. Often fading out from one clip into the next. The editing does a great job in adding to the mood and feel of the film and genre. The scene involving a black highlighter pen is slowed down and spent are lot more focus on this highlighting it's importance. The actual credits follow the thriller genre as they are messy and use a basic colour like white. The font used looks like it is hand written and they appear to flicker on the screen similar to an interrogation scene light bulb that flicker on and off to add suspense.
Things my group should take from this film
Fast paced and constantly flicking from one scene to another.
Always adding mystery and thrilling the audience by making them curious and asking questions about props used throughout.
No focus on who the characters are at this point and leaves them quite open to wonder about who they are, or what they will become.
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