Speed anylising oppening sequence of a film

Speed is an action thriller with Keanu Reaves as the protagonist and Dennis Hopper as the antagonist.
There are many typical conventions that turn up in thrillers. The way to show a convention is through a code most thrillers use these conventions in order to keep the audiences at the edge of their seat and thrilled. These are fore shadowing which can be shown in the narrative of he media text. a flash forward or a flash back the way thrillers may code this is through special effects to get from the present time to the flash forward or back like for instance in Final Destination there is special effects because we see the actual car crash happen in the boy eye before it happens. Or red hearing which is a wring lead this when the audience is made to think some thing, when actually some thing else is happening. For example in fight club the audience is made to think that that the antagonist and protagonist are two different people when in fact they are the same e person.
the typical convention that normally show up in the opening sequence of thrillers are normally flays backs or flash forwards like for instance in Passenger 57 an action thriller the opening sequence is of the protagonists wife getting killed.
In the opening sequence of Speed the title sequence is going doe an elevator shaft which lead the audience to think some thing is going to happen in this elevator. The first screen shot is of the word ‘CAUTION’, .
through using the convention for shadowing the audience straight away the audience are lead to think that something is going to happen because some one is where they shouldn’t be. There is any innocent patrol officer just making sure the area is safe we are lead to think that he is innocent because there is a clear shot of his face. Then we see that there is some unfamiliar in this part of the building whilst the officer is walking closer to the unknown person there is tense build up music to try and set the atmosphere that some thing is about to happen.

Then meet a possible antagonist because of the work he does. Antagonist in thriller mainly do manual labour work with there hands, they also so work in very lonely work areas. This man is possibly and engineer of some kind because he has a tool box that appears to have tools inside. He can also be considered as a protagonist because the camera slowly tilts ups his body then you almost see his face then there is a fast paced cut to the back of his head to heighten the audience suspicion in the character. Then the audience can defiantly tell that he is an antagonist because he stabs the officer is the side of his head the shot is of the back of the officer’s head to tone down the killing. Then it cuts to a close up of the killer’s face this man shows no remorse for what he has done however he does not look like he is insane so it gives the feel that he has a bigger plan than jus to kill that one officer.
We the cut to a close up a woman handing over some documents to some men all these people are possible protagonist because they have respectable job because they work in an office. All these people pile in to an elevator to whilst the are going up the elevator the camera keeps cutting to the elevator shaft to indicate that some thing is going to happen the convention used hear is foreshadowing.
In conclusion this film does not show many conventions in the opening sequence how ever it has shown us clear who one of the characters is.

research into locations for the opening sequence of openiong sequence

Analysing opening sequence of a film 2

Law Abiding Citizen

http://www.zshare.net/video/715051697a3d3826/

We looked at the opening sequence of Law Abiding Citizen. The gene of the film is a legal thriller, this is because the film is based on the justice system and how it can be undermined and manipulated to avoid maximum punishment. This film really questions your morals to which you decide for yourself if the father is the antagonist or protagonist.

The music and sound in the opening is used to control the audience’s feelings and emotions this is typical for a thriller. t he very start it sounds like they are listening to the radio. Then after when you hear the door being banged where you are waiting for something to happen the music is slow, quiet and mysterious. Then when the attackers storm in the music becomes more subtle however represents the struggling, pain and hopelessness of the father. The screams and moans from all the two characters are echoed to play on the emotions of the audience.

The opening supports the typical conventions of an opening to a thriller in the way that it creates questions to the audience. The questions left in the audiences head in this opening are, Why is the intruder killing the man’s family? How are they associated to him? What did the he do to the little girl? Another why that this conforms to a typical opening to a thriller is that it leaves the audience wanting to what more. They are intrigued by the action which happens abruptly within the first two minutes of watching. From the opening it seems that there is a clear protagononist who is the father of the little girl. However contradicting to that in the opening sequence he is working with tools we can assume this could be his job which is normally the types of jobs that antagonists do..


In the opening scene there are no clear conventions used. However there is a use of a close up of the bracelet that his daughter gave him which will probably feature throughout the film as the incentive to carry out his revenge.

Overall the opening is not like a typical Theiler this is because of the lack of conventions shown through codes, also the antagonist and protagonist are not displayed clearly. this is because the protagonist has antagonist qualities for instance the Manuel labour shown at the beginning. How ever also just like a typical protagonist the man has a respectable life style and is a man.

Finsh Preliminary

After finishing my preliminary exercise i had to get my peers to watch and evaluate my work. The three things they liked most was my use of angles to show who was week and who was Strong in the clip. they also like my music because they said it creates a tense atmosphere and makes them feel like some thing bad is going to happen. what they said was the most effective thing i did was keep cutting between the two which made the narrative very clear. the three thing they said they did not like about t was that good use of angle. narrative was clear Good use of cuts between the characters. they did not like the music going on after my work had finished. also the acting. and the dialogue was not clear. in conclusion i think i worked well but it could ave been better