Se7en, 1995

This is the film opening for 'Se7en'. The font used is very jagged and irregular, and makes it seem as though someone has scribbled the text. Additionally, the text intersects various shots of odd things, such as flicking through a book, and writing. The film itself sometimes blurs, and two images can be seen.

Script Research

A script is needed for our thriller opening, even if the opening only contains a small amount of dialogue. To gain knowledge of how to write a script, I looked at a few examples.

In class, I looked through the script of North by Northwest and was surprised to see an extremely detailed script, with lots of accurate and precise description. I decided to look at other scripts too, to see if there was some sort of trend that would run through out.

I then looked at the script for The Manchurian Candidate, which was laid out in a similar fashion to North by Northwest.

To see if there was any change between animated and non-animated movies, I looked at the script of Toy Story, and that there was very little difference.

As our production is only for the opening two minutes, I decided to look at the script for the pilot episode of Prison Break. The pilot episode would have to catch the attention of the viewer in the opening scenes, as well as introduce the characters. Therefore, I thought it was appropriate to look at the script.

The link to the scripts can be found below.

Manchurian Candidate

Toy Story

Prison Break

Panic Room, 2002

Below is the film opening of 'Panic Room', which was released in 2002. The font used is bold and dense, and looks metallic. It therefore fits its surroundings, as aesthetically, it matches the buildings.
The font is placed in line with the buildings, and looks ominous. This is an effective way of placing the credits into the film, as it sets the scene by using various of landscapes shots, and the text does not detract from the film.

Thrillers - Text

The thriller genre can span many different entities, including both film and text. A recent thriller text I read was 'Enduring Love', by Ian McEwan. The text centers around Joe Rose, and his new found stalker Jed Parry.

Joe tries to find the solution to Jed's obsession, and consequently enters many tense arguments with Jed. Other scenes also include a shooting, and a scene where Joe's girlfriend is taken hostage. Overall, the text is classified as a thriller, even though it ventures into several genre.
The novel has been made into a film, which is also put into the category of a thriller.

Opening Credits

After creating our ident, we will now begin to look at the opening credits of certain films in order to gain an idea as to what we need to include and how to include it.
Some of the films we will look at include 'In The Cut', 'Panic Room', and 'Se7en'.

After filming our thriller opening, and editing it, we will then see how we can place our credits into the film without distracting the viewer from the action happening on screen.

Storyboard

Today we all met up as a group and finished our storyboard. We now have a good idea as to what our thriller opening will consist of, and can work on gaining the licensing of certain music.
Tomorrow, one of us will create the animatic of our storyboard.

Visual Mind Map

Below is a visual mind map we created. We decided to do this to gain inspiration for our thriller, and to help us gain a better understanding of the genre.