'Se7en' Opening Sequence

Se7en - David Fincher - 1995

• Titles: typewriter font, white to stand out against constantly changing background, text overlaid on either black background of over film, blurry, scrawl effect, shifting text, uncomfortable, words flash/glitch around the screen confusing the viewer, distortion of size and shape of the words

A shot with text overlaid onto film during the opening

• Editing: Quick-cut editing, montage effect, images flash up to shock or confuse the viewer, disturbing, uncomfortable to watch not knowing what could flash up on screen, reminiscent of subliminal messaging, old fashion film reel style (film spots)
• Colour: sepia, black and white, gives an aged or unfinished look, red tint, adds a sense of danger, immediately associated with blood/death
• Shots: side angles, high angles, dutch angles, all extreme close-ups to add enigma, viewer is not seeing everything, allowing only the hands to be shown and not the face of the person, not knowing what is just out of frame is unnerving to the viewer

'Marnie' Opening Sequence

Marnie - Alfred Hitchcock - 1960

• Titles shown as a book, pages flipping, reminder that the film is based on a novel, loud classical music in background
• Order of credits: production company/studios logo, main actors in order of important/amount of screen time, title of the film, featured actors of slightly less importance to the film, director of photography, assistant director, unit manager, costume designer, editor, legal print stating that the characters and events are entirely fiction, music/sound composer, screenplay writer, director.
• One of the advantages of adapting a book into a film is that it already has an audience
• First shot: 

Close-up shot of someone carrying a bag, camera follows

• Interesting, unclear, immediate enigma, needs explaining, adds suspense, the bag is brightly coloured and stands out in the frame
• Loud music stops, sound becomes quiet, only footsteps are heard, change of moon adding tension and grasping the attention of the audience
• Body language of woman implies that it is a female carrying the bag, bouncy step, small arms, slight curve at the waist
• As the camera pulls away, more of the scene is revealed:

Camera pulls back to a mid-shot revealing more of the scene

• More of the character is revealed, female, dark business-type clothing, sleek black hair, body language is powerful and confident
• Location: train station in an industrial area/city

Camera stops as she continues to walk away, wide shot

• Station is empty apart from her, gives a feel of isolation, this feeling is increased by the lone sound of her footsteps
• Puts the suitcase down to show she is waiting for a train, still not seen her face, makes the audience suspicious and interested and show that she will be an important character later on

Cutaway to another scene in another location

• Cutaway and immediate speech "Robbed." implies that the previous scene and the current scene are connected (continuity editing), gives the bag possible context, possible answer to the enigma, reinforced by the cutaway shot to an empty shelf in the man's safe
• The man speaks in short sentences "Robbed. Cleaned up. 9,967 dollars." to show anger, bluntness and how serious the situation should be taken

Reverse shot, shows who he is talking to

• This next shot reveals who is listening to him, shows their reactions and expressions, tells the audience what the appropriate reaction is to the current scene
• Speak of the boss continues over the reverse shot, shows who is in control of the scene
• More of the location is shown, looks to be the man's office, opposite doors with the same colour frames show the uniform style of offices, personal decorations (painting, trophy), size of the office and the large amount of money he keeps with him in his own safe imply that he has a high status, possibly the boss
• Body language of the woman on the left implies she is a secretary, business-type clothing, neat, serious, observing but not getting too involved in things, standing by the door as if she had just let the other two men in
• Body language of the two men imply that they are detectives/police, writing notes and listening intently, dressed smartly in suits, focused look on their faces, standing closely together to show that they are a team
• Visual hierarchy, men are closer to the camera and so appear bigger and are more in focus compared to the woman, secretary less important in this shot

Returns to previous mid-close-up of boss

• Repeats the name of the suspected thief "Marion Holland. That's the girl. Marion Holland."shows the importance of the name and implies to the audience that it is worth remembering for later on in the film

Mid-shot of the detectives to show their reactions

• This shot adds humour to the rather serious and tense opening so far and shows the audience how to react to the boss' detailed description of the woman
• It is then reveal that she worked for the boss for 4 months, changing our opinion of the boss as we come to believe that he only employed her because he thought she was attractive
• the boss being made fun of shows that he perhaps does not have full control over the situation despite his high status

Mid-shot on woman, man walks in behind her

• Man enters shot and gradually comes into focus (focus pull technique) to switch the audience's attention
• Body language is confident, relaxed, casual with his jacket slung over his shoulder
• A recognisable/well-known actor (Sean Connery) implies that we are meeting a main character
• Power shift, boss' reaction is pleased to see the man and his voice goes from stern (while talking to the detectives) to soft and friendly, man acts aloof and nonchalant

Camera pans as boss walks over to man, mid-shot

• Man is centred in the shot, taller than the boss, not giving eye contact when the boss is, showing his dominance over the boss and that the boss respects the man, possibly even looks up to him
• The man knows the situation before having it explained to him and sums it up the girl briefly, making him appear well informed but arrogant, given a rather negative first impression of the newest character we meet
• Boss does not comment on the man's dismissal of the seriousness of the theft, whereas when the detectives smirked he told them off to keep them focused on the case, shows that the boss does not have the power over the man to do the same

Camera follows them as they move out of the office to talk

• Boss puts aside the case that seemed so incredibly serious and urgent to talk with this man, further shows a hierarchy between them but also shows the importance of this character

Camera slowly zooms into man's face during the same shot

• The camera moves into the man's face to bring all of the attention to the man's brief dialogue and rather knowing look on his face
• The camera hangs on his expression for a few seconds to give poignancy and imply that he knows this woman they're talking about quite well
• Cutaway shot to the woman confirms this by using continuity editing

Close-up on the bag again

• This shot is parallel to the opening shot, showing with a different background that she is in a different location but that she still has the bag, helps the story move along and give a sense of continuity and clarity to the plot
• There is now music in the background, classical yet sinister, a mysterious sense that something is happening

Camera pulls away into a wide shot revealing the new scene

• Revealed location is in a hotel, shows with similar doors, a corridor and a bell boy
• The bell boy carries boxes implying that the woman has already gone out and spent some of the stolen money for herself, possibly revealing her intentions in stealing the money in the first place, she only carries one small package and the yellow bag, showing high class (by not carrying her own heavy things) and the importance of the bag (by carrying that closely by her side)
• Enigma continues, still not seen her face

High angle shot from corner of the ceiling, observatory view

• This angle gives a sense that we are looking in on suspicious occurrences, that we are sneaking in and watching her carry out a crime
• Camera zooms into the new suitcase on the right as she neatly packs it with newly opened clothes and items, she packs the old suitcase on the left messily with old unfolded clothes, clearly showing that she is hiding her trail
• Shot of her opening the yellow bag confirms our strong suspicions that she had hidden the stolen money inside it

Extreme close-up to clearly show her different identities

• Shots of her other identity cards hidden in a secret compartment behind a compact mirror show her professionalism and her experience in hiding and changing identities, name on the first identity card confirms who she is as the woman mention by the boss earlier, that it is only one of her aliases

Close-up on the reveal of her face

• First reveal of her face 6 minutes 28 seconds after the beginning of the film, enigma kept secret for a fair amount of time, built up suspense
• Music reaches a crescendo as she flips her hair of her face to show her identity to show that it is a big, important part to the film and to the character

Low angle shot of her walking through a busy area

• The shot feels creepy and reminiscent of stalking her through a crowded place, people walking in between the camera and the woman makes it feel interactive as if you are there in the film following her, creates realism
• Music in the background is non-digetic, used to create a mysterious atmosphere
• Camera hides her face again to remind the audience of her ability to hide within a crowd
• Music stops and normal, digetic sounds begin, becomes obvious that she is in a train station, gives a sense that she has to move and travel around a lot to avoid getting found
• Camera pans up to her face, and next shot matches with her eye line to show the audience what she is looking at

Cutaway to mid-shot of a drain in her eye line

• Reveals her intentions, from here we can guess that there may be something hidden inside it or that she want to hide something in it
• She walks towards drain, close-up on her hand holding a small key that she just used to lock a suitcase into a station locker with, showing that the contents of the suitcase are very important and must not be found by anyone else
• She drops the key on to the drain and the camera cuts away to the ground

Close-up on a low angle of her foot on the drain

• She kicks the key into the drain, finalising her change of identity, confirming that she is safe from being caught for now, as the key plops into the drain the scene is finalised with the audience in the know that she will be a difficult thief for the detectives, the boss and the man to find

Continuity Exercise

Our video is about a situation in which three girls are complaining about another girl, Jess, behind her back. When Jess arrives, it becomes very awkward as each desperately wants to leave the scene.

Techniques We Used

• Low angle shot (makes the audience interested as to who it is, film grammar would suggest that as this shot is placed in between shots of the three girls talking about someone that the person walking is the one they are talking about, and that she is walking towards them):

• Cut to close-up shot (implies movement, the wider shot focused the movement toward the door, the closer shot focuses on the movement pushing the door open, adds fluency):

• Close-up (to clearly show the audience a reaction of one of the girls, demonstrates how what they think of Jess):

• Wide shot (to show the whole scene, the location and everyone in it):

• Close-up to match eye line (to help direct the audience's attention):

• Medium shot (to bring in the focus from the wide shot but while still showing both people in frame):

Problems We Ran Into

• While editing our video, we found that two of the shots we intended to edit next to each other appeared to have a jump-cut transition in between them. This made our video look unprofessional as the jump looked out of place. To fix this, we added in another close-up shot of Bethan's reaction to hide the jump. This worked, but if we could've reshot it we should've done the two scenes in one take to remove the need for a cut in between and the possibility of it looking like a jump-cut.

• There is one continuity error. At 34 seconds in, Bethan is looking toward Lucy. The video then cuts to a close-up shot of Bethan where she is looking forward. If we could've reshot this we would've made sure that everyone carried on each shot in the positions they finished the last one in. We could check this by looking back at the footage as we filmed.

• After we had finished and uploaded the video, we noticed that we'd left some audio of Ben (our cameraman) speaking in the video. We should've noticed this in editing so that we could've removed it by simply cropping the audio on the clip.