Micro elements in film openings

By Roberto Troisi

Extreme Close-up

The extreme close-up shows us the stress that the character is in as he wakes up with his head under the water, and he struggles to breathe. This shows him as a victim and that he has a low chance of surviving the danger he is in.

Close-up

The close-up shot allows the audience to see the emotion that the character is feeling and emphasises it. In this shot we can see that the character is scared as he is screaming and looks desperate.

Medium Shot

The medium shot allows us to see what clothes the character is wearing so that we can tell what kind of person they are. We can see that the man is wearing a normal shirt with the buttons undone and a t-shirt underneath it. This tells us that he is a normal and average man who may not be important to the film.

Long Shot

The long shot sets the scene and tells the audience where the place is. This long shot shows that the scene is in a bathroom as we can a bath and a toilet. The whole room is very unclean which means that no one has been in it for a very long time

Pan

This pan shot was used to show the audience what the two characters were staring at and showed that what it was panning to was going to be very important in the film.

Performance

The performance is very important in this scene as the characters need to appear very afraid about what is happening to make it believable to the audience. There is not much dialogue except for a few lines where the characters panic about the situation which is good because if it were real then two people who were being trapped like that would not just have a normal conversation instead of panicking about it.

Diegetic Sound

Diegetic sound is sound that the characters in the film can hear. One example in this scene is when the character wakes up under water. The sound of water thrashing about is heard which makes the scene more believable.

Non-diegetic sound

Non-diegetic sound is sound that can only be heard by the audience and not the characters in the film. An example of this is the scene is when the dead body is shown. The sound of a train approaching can be heard getting louder. This is to show the danger that the characters are in as the sound of a train approaching is scary in other movies as the characters in them are usually on the tracks while it is happening.

Mise En Scene

The setting of this scene adds to the scariness as the characters do not know where they are and it appears as dark and abandoned so know one will find them. The costumes of the characters show that they are just normal people and makes us wonder why they have been trapped and who has done this to them. The expressions of the characters makes the scene more believable and shows that they are actually scared, making the audience more scared as well. The props in the scene add to them mystery, especially the tape recorder and gun as they are out of place in a bathroom and make you wonder why they are there and what they are for.

When making my opening film sequence this research of micro elements will help me as I now have a better understanding of how they are used to give effects and get certain reactions from the audience.