I have conducted some individual research on the thriller genre for preparation into our own thriller opening. I have analysed the first two minutes of the thriller film ‘What lies beneath’ (Zemeckis, 2000), focusing on the camera work and sound used to establish the situation and character/s and how it intrigues the audience to watch further.
In this particularly clip of the opening through you tube, it doesn’t begin the sequence until about 55 seconds into it. It begins in a shadow of darkness, with a slight hint of a mist/water effect above the surface, along with a monotonous repetitive background composition, with a constant use of about three low keys. The title ‘What lies beneath’ then appears centred in the camera frame at a angled birds eye view, this reminded me of as if your staring down at a grave. The title is a misty but bold font and fades away after a couple of seconds. So far it has obviously been established as some sort of dark mysterious production even through just the first ten seconds through the music and range of dark events. Yet on the other hand not a lot has been given away about film and nothing has represented any significance yet.
The camera now dolly’s through the misty atmosphere, almost as if it’s picking up a faster pace, similar to as if someone is running through a dark woodened area. At about 1:32 this is emphasised as some high pitched violin produced sounds are added to the music to add to the increasing pace. I noticed the camera frame now looks like its looking up towards some huge trees shimmering darkly from moonlight or something. In addition you can hear a soft ’humming’ noise too. A light evolves from the top right of the frame and as this occurs the music appears to get faster and more clustered notes; the tone changes slightly to a little more stressed appearance. These changes all interlock with the modification of the speed of camera’s movement and amount of apparent substances within the shot. A eerie whispering noise - muttering indistinct sentences - arises and causes the light to increase along the width of the shot in a submarine type manner, as you can recognize it is now water. The loud violin stress noises come to a sudden halt as a sudden climax of the first shot comes together, as a deathly looking women’s face appears from beneath the water in a close up shot from a birds eye (but zoomed up) view. This goes back to what I thought about the coffin resemblance, as the women surfaces up from the water and opens her eyes abruptly and she takes a series of large gasps for air. This whole shot of her appearing from the water fits in nicely with the titles of ’What lies beneath’. Just from the first minute you are drawn in by the effective jumpy occurrences.
Shot two is a long shot from a doorway, establishing the surroundings. It shows it is a bathroom, and is mainly centred around the fact she is in the bath, as that’s the central focus in the frame. It is at a slight low angle and very slowly zooms in, as if someone/something is creeping up on her. The camera framing set up shows the room as pretty large compared to the women, with the overall colour theme being a ghostly white to fit in with the suspenseful atmosphere. There is no noise or music except the stressful echo of her gasping. The gasping explains something unusual had just occurred, but it is strange how she hasn’t reacted too badly to how bad the situation seems through just her gasps. This may show she has encountered these circumstances beforehand.
Shot three is a medium shot of her holding a hairdryer and a pan to the left as she switches it on and progresses it to the fogged out mirror, there is no sound except the hairdryer. I think this reinforces the fact she is on her own and creates a slight tense atmosphere. Furthermore it makes it more subtle when the hairdryer suddenly stops. As it shows her confused expression and her mutter of complaint, you can see in the shot that her eyes look towards the wall, which then cuts to the next shot as a point of view frame of the switch on the wall, this is man on action.
Shot four is a medium shot from a left sided angle of the cable and switch, showing clearly the danger label on the hairdryer. With the sudden electric shock and sparks as a consequent of her action of trying to tamper with it, the hand moves away quickly and returns to the setup of shot three. There is still no sound except her squeal of panic.
Shot five is the same set up as shot three and shows her panicked state, she looks down and is surprised to see the hairdryer is functioning again. It then pans slightly to the left and the hairdryers movement is shown as she clears the mirror, the state of the clouded up mirror resembles and connects to the atmosphere and misted features of the opening so far. The shot ends with a symmetrical line up of seeing her reflection in the mirror.
Over all with the lack of and when any sinister based music/sound, it creates a sense of anxiety and tension within the thriller. It becomes obvious that the female character is on edge and apprehensive. Any noises that did occur e.g. the deep breathing/the alarming panting/scream suggests the thriller is going to entail some scary events. The occurrences that took place also emphasises this, for example her sudden rise from the water gasping, the hair dryer stopping, the electric shock etc. The camera work was clever in many ways, for example most of the movement was slow and sly, I think this was deliberate to create a sense of something watching/creeping up on her. The beginning imagery of being underwater in darkness was connected with the bathroom settings and set the tone for the rest of the opening. Over all I think through analysing this opening, it will help me and my group take into consideration ideas and styles of thriller openings when considering camera work and sound effect.
This is the link to the youtube clip I used: : http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tpvaGoT0tPU
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