Daisy's Media Blog: Opening Sequence Analysis.

A Nightmare On Elm Street Title Analysis. This is one of my favourite openings of any horror movie to date. I think the whole sequence is extremely harrowing and the mise en scene is dark and disturbing. In the sequence we see a character introduced; however, he is not named and his face is not shown, just his hands. He is shown to be making his signature claw like weapon. This would make the audience immediately feel uncomfortable as they know, due to the nature of the film they’re about to watch, that this is most likely going to be used to kill people. A mixture of fast and slow editing is used throughout the sequence, I believe that this is done purposely to show the erratic behaviour of the person making the weapon, showing the audience that his mood could change at any second. This makes the audience feel even more on edge as the long camera shots are usually held on the weapon that this person is making. A lot of the camera work is done in a POV style, this is quite strange for a horror film and has been done before in another earlier horror film titled ‘Halloween’ which was directed by John Carpenter. It is strange as the audience get to see the world through they eyes of a killer, which is almost sympathising with them; however, this is done to make the audience feel disturbed and unsettled as it’s not a normal viewing point for a film, it also means that the director doesn’t give away the full identity of the creature at hand, leaving some mystery to unfold in the actual movie. The sound in the movie is reasonably quiet, with only the sound of breathing to be heard. This is creepy and disconcerting for the audience as it feels like the killer is close to them. Mostly close up shots are used in this sequence in order to allow for the identity of the person making the weapon to be kept secret.

Halloween POV Shot

Erratic Titling = Suspense

The best other title sequence from the horror genre to compare this one to would be Se7en. This is another one of my favourite title sequences and was directed by Kyle Cooper, a legend in the opening title sequence world. This sequence also features the character who plays the killer and is designed to be unsettling for the audience to watch. Mostly extreme close ups and close up shots are used in the sequence, again, I believe, to keep the identity of the killer a secret yet also to introduce the audience to the film, and give them an idea of what they are going to spend the next 90 minutes watching. Se7en’s title sequence uses extremely fast editing to create a sense of madness and chaos with flashing images which are almost too quick to properly view. I think this is done to try and portray the mindset of a psychopathic killer and what’s going on inside their heads. The person introduced in this sequence is not making a weapon, like in Nightmare on Elm Street, but rather a sort of book. This may not sound too disturbing; however, the writing is all in different languages and the pictures are graphic and disconcerting, showing that the man writing the book is somehow not completely sane, which makes the audience tense. As the sequence goes on, the editing becomes more and more erratic and quicker, creating more tension for the audience before the film actually starts. With this faster editing comes faster and faster music, this creates a sense of urgency and manic about the sequence. The mise en scene of the sequence is similar to that of A Nightmare on Elmstreet, in the sense that it is very dark, disturbing and unsettling for the audience to view, making it a fantastic opening title sequence for this type of film.

Double vision FX and different language

Book of illegible writing - Not sane

Interesting Extreme Close Up

To contrast these films, I’ve decided to use Little Miss Sunshine. This film is of the ‘drama/dark comedy’ genre, and the opening title scene is the complete opposite of the horror scenes. In this opening, the director is trying to give the audience as much information as possible about all the characters in the film, rather than withholding it to create mystery and suspense. This allows the audience to connect immediately to the characters, thus making the film more open to reliability and laughs as people feel more comfortable when they know more about the characters. The editing is much slower, done purposely to accompany the mellow soundtrack which suggests a boring and monotonous life for the family shown in the sequence. This sequence is strange as the music very much contrasts what is going on in the shots, the music is a happy and bouncy track whilst the scenes show the family all struggling through their lives. Camera techniques such as pans and tilts are used throughout the sequence in order to allow for more information to be taken in by the audience to get to know how this family lives. A mixture of extreme close ups, close ups and mid shots are used in this sequence, I believe that, again, this is done to allow the audience to feel closer to this family, a sort of ‘fly on the wall’ vibe.