Analysis - Seven Opening Scene

Seven -  Opening Sequence

Seven is a thriller made in 1995, is was produced by New Line Cinema and it cost $33 million to make and earned $100,12,643. The first thing on the shot is just a book with the pages turning, alike to the genre this immediately draws the viewer in, they have no clue where they are at nor what is going on in the scene. Straight away it creates the element of fear taking someone out of what they know and placing them in a world where they do not know where they are who else is there, or indeed what they are doing. The multiple close ups , like used in "dexter", again do show bits of what is happening but even combined they do not create any sort of picture as to what is going on in the scene, the short snippets that are shown give only hints as to what is going on. Generally the images shown are not things that typically a person would be scared of more so as an example the beginning shot which simply shows the opening of a book. However progressively throughout the course of the opening the images appear to get more and more sinister and more and more ambiguous as to what is actually going on, there are a few time throughout the clip where by shots of drawings of the human anatomy are shown, but again as a common play on the feature of gore horror the picture appears to have the hands twisted in some sort of way. Also another thing which makes these seemingly normal things become in a way disturbing is the way the lighting and the camera is used. The way the camera flickers it appears to fragment the scene and break up giving it that feeling of uncomfortableness and makes the viewer immediately begin to feel uneasy. The first real thing which plays on the mind is the use of what appears to be a small blade to chop the fingerprints of the characters hands. This would obviously strike straight away as weird and rightly so. This uses the element so prevalent in psychological horrors the idea of exploring the part of the human psyche that scares a person that side that most people tent to push aside and pretend not to feel and pretend it doesn't exist, however psychological horrors show this side of which terrifies people and that is why. When they are showing just normal people doing these things it makes it so that it gets to the viewer. This is what we are attempting to create with our project as well the idea of exploring someones darker side, but also the use of camera in seven with the fragmented style of it to create and aura of discomfort. The camera effects used the sort of blur and move the images out of focus is used again to create the same effect on the audience, whereas this does in a way so that it becomes difficult for the viewer to concentrate on one particular part of the clip when it is fading in out of focus, this relates back to the way the aura of discomfort is created by this. The general colour of the scene is very melancholic in the way it is all very dark grey colours very bland, however for a split second at 00:47/48 seconds there is a tiny splash of red which falls on the paper, this is extremely important, it conveys the message straight away that there is going to be some sort of violence in this, and the fact that it is so difficult to spot makes it even more prevalent that it is a subtle thing so if it does catch your eye you will not even be sure of what you have seen further reinforcing this aura of discomfort. However later on the scene just becomes more and more accustomed to having the colour red, with its obvious connotation of blood and danger, this creates a very specific foreboding effect that there is going to be death it pretty much confirms this by showing this amount of red. Towards the end of the piece there is a shot of a picture on the desk this picture shows a nail through the back of someones head this obviously is a slightly creepy sight and will evoke particular emotions from the viewer those emotions being that of fear confusion and (for the type of person who will be going to see this film as they will enjoy seeing that type of gore and scene of disgust as it is their favourite type of films very similar to the audience of dexter if not more serious as dexter did certainly have a air of tongue and cheek about it whereas Seven certainly does not) interest. As the clip comes nearer and nearer to end a simultaneous speeding up of the clip is easily heard the music speeds up and the rate at which images are being flashed across the screen are also being sped up, particularly this being used as an introduction does not have too much of a particular effect on the audience mainly used to let them know that it is getting closer and closer to the beginning. But the way everything speeds up does create a sense of urgency especially the way the music and clip are use to create the effect it the gives the appearance of the video itself speeding up as an overall. The use of this will put thew audience on the edge of their seat, so to speak, and really draw their attention to the screen drawing all focus in. Also with the short snippets being difficult enough to decipher without them being sped across the screen now that they are will make it even more confusing  and disorientation for the viewer to sit and watch, this could certainly be an option for a way to close our project using the speeding up of the clips in order to create the sense of tension and as if it is coming to a definitive climax. Furthermore there is even more things in the clip that lend themselves to create the desired effects on the audience, on of these is the words that a put across the screen these being things such as names of actors director and producers etc. The typography used for these words is very abstract almost scratchy the idea of scratching names or words Also, alike to the images shown, the words often flicker repeatedly and are sometimes even difficult to first see when they come up on the screen as they often twitch around slightly before they stay still, this again has the idea of being erratic linking to being insane or crazy they seem almost unpredictable and clear link to the character himself. An imprortant point about the character is that you don't see his face, while this may seem very trivial we will be working extremely hard with planning in order to ensure that this is also true with our final project. the way that his/her face is not shown creates a high sense of mystery about the scene and certainly adds the element of horror straight off it almost similar to having a masked killer. Not seeing the face of someone is also another thing that has psychological implications withing it, for all the audience know this person could be seriously deformed (as James discussed in the Hannibal trailer the idea of body horror) this would also scare the viewer as they would obviously begin to worry why isn't there face been shown and getting the feeling that there must be a reason for this hiding of the characters face. Finally the music in the video creates a highly creepy atmosphere, this being because it is very quiet, and almost inaudible as to what it actually is, it also has a running theme through it a constant beat almost like a heartbeat, and as it goes thought he scene it gets quicker as mentioned before. The type of audience to view this would be the same that we would be targeting with our project, they like to be kept in the dark, they like the way his face isn't shown, they enjoy the fear this creates and it makes the film just more and more interesting for them. They feel clearly that this element of mystery is what keeps the film alive and keeps them drawn in making them watch to find the answers.