Thriller - Definition

Brief: Opening two minutes of a fictional film, including titles

What is a Thriller?: Thriller films primarily use action and suspense to engage the audience, as they emphasise nervous tension, as opposed to horror films which emphasise fear, or action films which emphasise exhilleration. The motive force of a thriller can range from small-scale fraud to international conspiracy, relying on a minimum of pugilistic action,relying instead on mystery and suspense.

Narrative: Directors such as Hitchcock use the positioning of a common-man character against events more suited to an action film

Hanna Opening Scene Essay

       In the opening scene to Hanna, director Wright uses mainly sound and specific camera work to create and effective scene through tension and suspense.

       Wright uses a wide variety of sound during the opening scene, firstly through using a low-key, synthetic white noise effect over scenes of almost silent, remote nature shots. This affectively creates tension because the juxtaposition of the natural setting with the synthetic, incompatible buzzing sound off-sets the audience and alludes to something unexpected and out of place: Hanna.

       Secondly, Wright uses the diagetic sound in the scene to great effect in order to create tension. By emphasising the sound of the breath of both Hanna and the Moose, and also the sound of their footsteps in the snow, the audience becomes aware of the immanent action between the two. Following this, the solitary line of dialogue spoken by Hanna to the moose clearly indicated her as the titular character and effectively closes the ending.

       Wright also uses specific shots and camera techniques to produce an affective opening scene. He effectively creates tension between the moose and Hanna by revealing them first in separate, wide tracking shots in the forest. This is followed by two interchanging shots of the two, one mid-shot and a close up of the face, before Hanna shoots the moose. This is an effective way to create tension because the audience can begin to suspect some sort of action between the two, and understand the hunter/hunted aspect of the scene.

       Another affective camera technique used is when Hanna has caught up to the injured moose, delivers her dialogue and shoots the animal. The low angle on Hanna suggest to the audience she is a powerful/dangerous character in the film, therefore creating expectations of the character and alluding to the tension centred around her.

       In conclusion, Wright mainly uses the sound and camera techniques to create tension and therefore an effective opening sequence to Hanna. By keeping other methods for creating tension such as lighting and focusing on the two techniques, tension felt by the audience is amplified; the merging of the two therefore creates and affective, concise opening sequence to the film, establishing it as a successful thriller.

Film Openings 5 - Casino Royale

• Establishing shot of building followed by various low/high angle shots of the villain engage the audience by focusing on certain aspects in the frame and the building detail
• Black and White suggests tone of the film will be echoing noir themes of 1940s thrillers
• Low-key lighting of office scene contrasting to high-key lighting of bathroom emphasises difference action and alerts the audience to the tension 
• Tight frame of Bond's face half in shadow forces audience to focus on character and suggests his duplicity

Movie Openings 4 - Children of Men

• Silence and then sound bridge to the people watching news creates tension and establishes part of the setting
• Single shot sequence simultaneously offers establishing shots while also panning to focus on main character, also it is more interesting for an audience as it is unusual
• Use of mainly diagetic sound highlights the shock of the unpredicted explosion surprising the audience 
• Shaky camera work emphasises the confusion and effect of the explosion on the characters
• Grey lighting sets tone of film; more dark and gritty suggested by duller lighting

Movie Openings 3 - Fish Tank

• Tight framing with the main character in focus. Her breath and footsteps emphasised almost echoing in empty room to highlight her character's isolatoin
• Shaky camera work to give the film a rawer, more truthful to life affect, in contrast to big-budget hollywood films
• Sound bridge to noise of children playing outside which continues throughout the majority of shots
• Only diagetic sound used, further highlighting the films realism 
• Flat lighting gives the shot a colder, grey edge colour that adds to the tone of the film and the small budget style

Movie Openings 2 - Collateral

• Sound bridge establishes setting in busy place, with footsteps highlighted to emphasise importance of that character
• Cuts between two characters walking alluding to later collision
• Close up of briefcase stresses importance of the object
• Music playing over shots of the city then cutting out when Foxx enters the taxi shows significance of that setting and that character
• Tight frames throughout sequence engage the audience while setting the scene
• Typical hollywood ''gloss'' picture highlights big budget style film

The New World - Final Scene

This isn't an opening scene or a thriller but I really like the way they mix the the Wagner with the nature sounds, especially at the end when the music suddenly cuts and you're left with the sounds in the forest. The way they also between scenes during her life and the people left after her death is really effective, particularly the shot of the native american sitting alone in the mainly dark room before running outdoors.

Movie Openings 1

One of my favourite directors of all time is Quentin Tarantino, mainly for the fact he has such a unique and distinctive style as a director that is genuinely lost in most modern cinema blockbusters (though this is mainly down to editor Sally menke who died after completing inglourious basterds). Anyways Kill Bill vol. 1 has to be one of my favourite films of all time and has one of the most memorable openings.

Sorry that that clip is in french but it was the only one i found with the full credits. Heres the dialogue in english if your interested, which you should be because it's awesome.

Mr Halleday: ''why don't you open with a quote''. I never did it in english, but i like the way Tarentino uses it to immediately establish the premise, tone and and general plot of the film. The following few credits with the sound of the unseen bride breathing are also really powerful and whatever the technical term for that if there is one, i like it. Other things I like about this scene + credits:

• The Lighting that highlights one side of the bride's face and wounds, while leaving the other half in shadow, suggest there is more to the bride than what seems to be right now the damsel in distress (the black and white further highlights this effect)
• While the camera focuses on the bride the sound of approaching footsteps out of shot and then cutting to the boots
• Tarantino introducing the second main character of bill by showing the handkerchief with his name on simultaneously during his monologue, slightly like incorporated captions
• The Bride's really out of the blue revelation about the baby and then the abrupt shot to the head neatly ends this sort of prologue while causing the audience's interest to escalate
• Nancy Sinatra's song is so unbelievable appropriate here

DVDs in the cupboard by my tv

• Lord of the Rings Trilogy (two towers is the bomb)
• Kill Bill vol. 1
• Blackadder
• Dark Knight
• The it crowd
• Doctor Who
• Gavin and Stacey
• Indiana Jones films
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
• Some Like it Hot
• Grave of the Fireflies
• West Side Story
• Forest Gump
• Letter from Iwo Jima
• All the Harry Potters
• Monty Python box set
• Marie Antoinette 
• The Simpsons movie
• Lost Series 3
• Downfall
• and i found a moulin rouge 2nd disc under some stuff