Conventions Of A Thriller Opening.

Conventions of a thriller opening sequence.

Mysterious:
A convention of a thriller opening sequence would be that it has to be mysterious, by mysterious it has to confuse the audience members especially in the genre of thriller, this is to prevent them knowing too much detail about what the film may be about, a mysterious opening will make the audience want to continue watching, and it will put them on edge and make them curious about what the movie will be about.  

Props:
The props used in the opening sequence of a film would mainly be, knives and guns or harmful objects, having the harmful prop will create questions, and make as though there is intent to hurt someone, however we don't know if there is a motive, however it starts to give the audience an idea of who the antagonist and protagonist is. Also the props used shows who may have more power over the situation, giving the audience and idea, however they remain unsure, an example of the movies which are thrillers where a weapon is used are: Sherlock Holmes and Memento. 

Here is a screenshot from the opening from Sherlock Holmes - We see a prop of a gun- Creating a sense of danger.

Here is a screenshot from the opening sequence of Memento - We see the man holding a prop gun - Showing someone is in danger.

Making you think: 

 Another convention of a Thriller opening is that it has to make you think, by making you think the opening is confusing you and you have to put things together to understand what is happening, such as in the opening sequence of Memento, the clip is in reverse which will create confusion for the audience members. So the audience is going to become confused by this, also in the clip of Now You See Me, we don't know who any of the characters are so we have to guess who they are and what there purpose is, which makes us the audience think.

           The opening sequence  reverse shot in Memento, to create confusion to the audience.

Costumes and Makes you ask questions: 

In an opening sequence to a thriller film, we mainly see that the characters are either in two types of costumes, which are smartly dressed or causal dressed, the costumes are made to create a sense of normality, however by the costumes we also see who may have a higher status in the film, because in the opening sequence to Now You See Me, the first character is wearing a suite, however after we see the next character, they are in casual wear, the costumes can tell us about the characters personalities such as smartly dressed, may mean stereotypically they are smart (which is another convention of a Thriller opening sequence) as the characters in a thriller needs to be stereotypically smart and attempts to figure out a mystery, however this is normally shown in the opening sequence, because the Director drops you in a scene of action, it is done in the movies: Memento - Where the scene is in reverse - Now You See Me -Where we see a magic act being performed- And Sherlock Holmes - Where it is a chase scene - The fact that a thriller opening sequence drops you in the middle of the action, confuses the audience and makes you ask questions to what is happening.  

This is taken from Sherlock Holmes, this shows that the man is wearing a costume which is a suite, to emphasise that he may have authority, and making the audience wonder who he is. 

Lighting and Camera angles:

In a thriller opening sequence, you would normally see low key lighting, this is purposely done so that the setting hasn't been given away or to make us the audience think. Low key lighiting can also be used to hide some of the characters distinctive features, such as what they look like. By using low key lighting it makes us the audience want to know more about the situation or what is about to happen. Low key lighting in a thriller opening is normally used to make it unclear what is going on, examples of uses of low key lighting would be: In Brick, the opening sequence was darkened and as though the light had be taken away, the use of low key lighting in Brick is used to represent death, however we don't know how the women died. Another example would be in Memento, the low key lighting is also used to represent the death of the man. However in The Sixth Sense opening sequence, the low key lighting is used to create a scary atmosphere to put the audience on edge. 

Low key lighting used to cast shadows in The Sixth Sense, creating a on edge atmosphere to a Thriller film.

The camera angles that are used in a Thriller opening sequence are usually: Close ups, extreme close ups and long shots. The Close up and extreme close ups are used so that not to much information is given away to the audience about what is going on in the opening, because if you give too much information away the film isn't worth watching, examples of where the close ups have been used: Brick, where the womens hand is in the frame so we don't know much about her identity, which makes us want to know reasons to why she maybe dead. Another example would be, the close up of the light turning on, creating tension to what is about to happen next, however telling us that the basement is old, telling us that something isn't right. However in thriller opening sequences, they can use Long shots, however not as often, a long shot is usually to show a loose frame, which means that the character is alone or isolated from other people, this was used in the film Brick. 

Loose frame in Bricks opening sequence, to show how the character is isolated from others around him.

Sound: 

Lastly, in a thriller the soundtrack in the opening sequence tends to be slow paced at first however, when the action increases the pace of the music also increases, this is done to set the atmosphere that the movie is going to possibly be fast paced or to gain the attention of the audience. There are examples of this such as in the Sherlock Holmes, at the beginning it is slow paced and calm, however once the action begins the pace of the soundtrack increases.This is also shown in the opening sequences of other thriller films such as The Sixth Sense, Now You See Me and Memento.