Obsession Student thriller from
Holly Entwistle on
Vimeo.
The production starts off with a full screen
image of the ‘Miramax studios’ logo. The logo is presented as a full screen
title telling us that it is important information, and the colors of the logo
are white writing on a black background. This has been chosen because the black
and white contrast with each other as binary opposites and create a sinister
atmosphere. Next the ‘fractional studios logo appears, this again is full
screen on a black background and the image and writing are in white. The crow
is all black with a red eye, black symbolizes darkness along with red
symbolizing fear and death, the use of the red in the crow’s eye makes the crow
look more sinister and dangerous all of which sets the mood for the upcoming
thriller, fear. Crows are a bird associated with mystery and power, many people
see them as a symbol of superstition and bad luck, therefore the crow has been
used as it helps to create the thriller genre of dark and evil and also adds to
the sinister effect. We then have the title of the opening of the thriller,
‘Obsession’. This is full screen so we focus on it. The writing is white and
Sans Serif and the background is black. This shows us the binary oppositions
and foreshadows the genre of the piece; thriller. There’s no sound, and the
silence is significant until a non-diegetic, industrial rock type of music
plays with a repetitive, machine like rhythm. This is played while the titles
are still on. This creates a sinister atmosphere.
As the titles fade out, the music becomes
louder and louder and hits a crescendo. From this we have a sound bridge of the
music (hitting the crescendo), and takes us to the emphasized diegetic sound of
a tap dripping. The music dies out and we hear the diegetic sound of the water
hitting the basin of the sink. This has been done to build tension from the
audience and to emphasize the sinister atmosphere the scene is intending to
create. The shot is an extreme close-up and we see the water dripping
one-by-one. Whilst the music is still playing there is an emphasized sound of
water dripping from the tap.
Sound bridges are constantly used to link
each of the shots within the opening scene. We cut away to a long shot of a
hill from inside the house looking out of the window, followed by a series of
ellipsis edits showing other point of view shots looking out of other windows
is the house. In the corner of one of the shots is a pair of binoculars, these
are placed in order to imply that the character is spying or stalking someone.
The camera is slightly wobbling on these shots adding to the effect of the
point of view. Here there’s natural light used and it’s bright. This creates
controversy with the fact that it’s a thriller and the setting seems positive.
On this shot we have white, overlay titles. These are in sans-serif, which
tells us the film does not require intelligence to understand the plot; it
implies that the film will be action filled and modern. The titles grow as we
cut away to a medium close-up of the window. Here it’s still ambiguous but we
feel due to the mysteriousness of the opening that we have seen villain.
From here we cut to a montage of cuts; the
titles disappear and we cut away to a bed shot, here it’s at a low angle.
There’s high key low contrast lighting involved to represent more a feeling
through the camera work. We cut away to a high angle shot of a mobile phone;
it’s an extreme close-up to show the significance of the phone. The phone also
shows the modern era juxtaposing with the exterior of a rural area. The phone
turns on; here we hear a diegetic sound of the phone vibrating once again to
reinforce the significance. Only a hand appears and this could show, once
again, the importance of the phone. We once again get overlay titles, in the
same font, as we fade into another close-up of the t-shirt. From this we cut to
a low angle of a coat, the low angle could suggest dominance alongside with the
dark lighting. From this we cut to a close-up of the zip of a blue jacket
someone is wearing. We hear the diegetic sound of the jacket zipping up; this
creates ambiguity because we still don’t know who the person is as we’re yet to
see his face. To reinforce the idea of mystery we cut to the back of the
character who is putting his hood up. This allows the audience to believe he is
trying to hide himself and makes it more of an ominous opening.
We cut to a close-up of his shoes on a red
carpet. The red carpet could give the idea that something is going to go wrong
due to its negative connotations of blood and death. The black shoes also
signify unhappy things; on top of this we have more overlay titles. From the
fairly static pictures so far, there’s a match on action edit of him walking
out of his bedroom door. We have a close-up of the door; we hear a diegetic sound
of the man walking on the ground and the door opening. We then cut back to the
previous shot on the floor to represent the match on action.
From here, we’re once again looking at the
back of the character to continue the mystery as he walks down the stairs. We
cut to a low angle long shot of the stairs, with the camera cutting off his
face. The titles are still ongoing from here as the ellipsis edits of his
morning routine continue, we hear the diegetic sound of his cereal crackling as
he pours the milk.
We feel a sense of normality with this
character currently as he’s partaking in everyday activities so it’s something
we can relate to. But alternatively, his character is never fully revealed
which consequently allows us to think something is wrong, something bad is
going to happen and he may be the villain. This idea is supported by the
non-diegetic music in the background at this point, the same industrial rock
music that played at the beginning.
Once the person has left the house we fade to
black. From here we cut to him walking, he does have a bag which allows us to
think he’s going somewhere. Maybe he is going to school, or on the other hand
he may have alternative motives which we, the audience, aren’t aware of.
A graphic match is used to follow the boy as
he walks, this is done from a front angle long shot, this is used to
continually shoot his walk and move time on so it does not get boring for the
audience. An ellipsis edit is then used to introduce a young female character,
who we presume is the victim. We presume she is the victim because she is a
young female character, using Propp’s theory about character roles in films she
fits the character of the ‘princess’ or damsel in distress. The constant
sinister background noise merges into a happier melody accompanied with
diegetic bird noises in the background to create juxtaposition. This has been done to portray to the audience a
little about the girls character, the bird noises are to represent her
innocence and happiness compared to the contrapuntal non-diegetic music
represents the danger she is unaware of. We can see that she will be the
protagonist character in the film and soon become the victim. The music is used
to create happiness around this character in order to create a love for her so
when the girl later becomes the victim the audience feels empathy. A cut away
shot is used to show both characters walking along the same path, not together
but with the boy following behind the girl. As the girl comes into contact with
another boy we hear the diegetic sound of their interaction and greetings.
Meanwhile in the background when another person appears we see the boy, who we
presume is the protagonist, disappear behind a tree, this is done to show the
audience he does not want to be seen. This is done to create tension from the
audience as we know something bad is soon going to happen however the girl does
not. Doing this gets the audience involved with the film and entices them to
watch more.
Throughout this the music is still playing in
the background. Overlay titles are being shown over the scene in white writing,
overlays are used to as they are an important piece on information within the
star of the film, however they are used as overlay as it makes the beginning of
the film flow as we focus on the action.
The girl drops her bag as she is walking;
this makes the audience question why she dropped her bag? Did something make
her drop her bag? A high-angled shot is used which creates a sense of weakness
and vulnerability about the girl. As the girl bends down a medium close up is
used and we see the boy stood behind her however when she stands again she
looks around and they boy is no longer there. We see she looks concerned, we
can tell she senses a presence of some sort.
he is no longer there showing the audience
that he is stalking her and makes us wonder where he is which then builds
tension and creates an air of mystery.
The screen now fades to black and the music
tempo and pitch decreases and once more the sinister sound that was used at the
beginning of the film. An ellipsis edit is used to take us to a street, at
first the lights are blurred used to create a sense of unknown and mystery amongst
the audience, this then focuses showing a long shot of the street.
It then cuts to a long shot of the victim
(the girl) walking down the street alone, her face is dark as chiaroscuro
lighting is used. This makes the viewer’s uneasy and on edge as they do not
know what is going to happen next however they know the girl is in danger.
Another cut to medium to long shot of someone else walking behind her who is
unidentified, the character has a bigger body build and their hood up so we
presume this is the boy from earlier. At first we just see one figure however
as she continues to walk the second figure emerges from behind her, this
creates a shock to the viewer and build the tension as we realize that the incident.
The diegetic sound of cars is used in the background as this links with the
scene and makes it realistic, simultaneously the non-diegetic music is building
in the background towards a crescendo, and this mirrors the action of the film
as we know the disaster is drawing near. A medium shot of the attacker’s legs
standing in front of the victim just before an extreme close up of the girls
mouth is showed as we hear the diegetic sound of the girl screaming in a loud,
unpleasant pitch. A dissolve edit is used to transition the shots, the use of
the dissolve here helps build the tension as it is quite a slow edit, is also
makes the characters seem closer than they have ever been.The shot of the boys
legs is used in order to show a barrier between the audience and the girl, is
makes her seem more helpless and provokes emotion from the audience of a will
to help her. We are not shown what makes her scream as is creates more interest
and a want to know what is happening, it leaves us on a cliff hanger in order
to be hooked for the rest of the film. We assume that the boy who features in
the start of the film has attacked her in some way; we are just not sure as to
whether she survives the attack or is the attacker gets found. What will the
resolution be?
A cracking sound of faded voices end the
scene whilst the film title is shown again, flickering each letter on and off.
This leaves the opening of the sinister tone needed to continue this effect
throughout the rest of the film.
I think the opening as a whole was very well
done and creates the sinister tense mood that thrillers need. The end scenes
help to build the tension for the viewer because of the lighting and non-music
used. All of the editing done is smooth and does not create confusion or a jump
in the flow of the opening so the viewer is clear about what is happening. An
area that could be improved is the middle section of the opening, when it is
shot in daylight outside. I think the process is a little drawn out and could
have been done more efficiently and less confusing to keep up the flow of the
film.
