Analysis of a project: A grade

Analysis of another student's A grade project

This project is titled 'Invite'. This project was an A grade, and so therefore presents the audience with a good narrative, with good use of camera, sound, editing and mise en scene. The titles appear at various points throughout the opening, in a sans serif turquoise colour which isn't a typical colour associated with the thriller genre.

The titles appear throughout the sequence.

They also use a black and white effect when presenting the audience with an outdoor scene, but when the character is inside, the pictures are in colour. This is effective because the audience wonder what connection these colour changes will have on the narrative. However, I personally would have kept the whole opening in black and white, as this gives an overall sleeker and professional finish. The camera shots are done well, as close up shots, long shots, mid shots, and over the shoulder shots are just a few of the shots used throughout the opening sequence, which are smoothly put together.

Here, the extreme close up shot is presented in colour, but the previous screenshot on this blog post is in black and white, showing the two uses of the effect.

 

The non diegetic music uses deep, prolonged non diegetic sound which isn't typical music associated with a thriller, however it still works to add suspense and tension to the narrative, but wouldn't be the first choice of music for when I create my final thriller opening. This would have to be researched into and tested out on the audience using primary research. The limited use of dialogue also adds to the narrative enigma, as the audience do not know exactly what is going on, or understand the relationship between the two characters.

Minimal dialogue is used. Here, the actor says 'Do you want some coffee'.

The lighting is fairly high key, but the quality isn't brilliant but this could be down to it being an older clip and therefore the technology wasn't as advanced. The characters are presented in normal, casual clothing, which presents them as being normal, making the audience wonder what is going to happen in the narrative. The editing mainly uses straight cuts and the occasional long take, which is effective because it gives the opening pace.

Casual costume for a sense of normality combined with the abnormality of the storyline.

 

Overall, this is a really good example of an opening sequence as it is well executed and contains a narrative enigma, adding suspense and tension for the audience. 

The clip analysed shown below: