Planning - Opening two minutes ideas/analysis

Planning and research for our own opening two minutes using the film Se7en for inspiration

At the moment, my group and I are looking into the horror genre in the hope to develop some ideas/inspiration for our own opening two minutes. We have decided to start looking into this particular genre as it seems to be the easiest to successfully represent with what equipment we have, as well as the most fun, however this may change as we progress in our research.

Looking at the trailers from the film Se7en, it is evident that the editing pace is very fast, in order to confuse the audience, making it unclear as to what is happening. Different focuses are used too such as the deep focus, shallow focus and focus pull, for the same purpose as the editing pace, making it difficult to see clearly or drawing the audience's attention to something in particular. A range of different shot types are used, with emphasis on the close up. With the fast editing pace, this makes the scene look very unbalanced, making the audience feel uneasy. Different lighting is also used, however it is all relatively dark, showing the different settings but making the audience have to pay attention at the same time in order to try to understand. The non-diegetic sound track is an important feature in the credits as it plays a main role in setting the scene. It is this that makes the audience feel so uncomfortable as the discordant, eerie percussion/music is precariously unstable constantly making them feel on edge.

From this, I have learnt the importance and the different purposes of some of the techniques used in filming and entertainment. It has become more obvious as to why these aspects are used, and my group and I would like to attempt to replicate them in our own film. The most important techniques we have decided to focus on are the different types of focusing as they are shown to have a strong affect on both the understanding and the tension/suspense that is created. The other technique we are going to focus on is the music. Although this scene in Se7en is only the opening credits, it has an immediate effect on the audience, establishing the genre, target audience and setting the tone/theme of the film, and we find it very successful at doing so.