Thriller Opening 5 -Signs - M. Night Shyamalan, 2002 (Sci-Fi Thriller)

Camera
There is very little camera movement in this opening sequence. The angle of the camera being straight and centralised in the middle, focusing on the characters names. Slow zooming out through he window away from the view of the garden jumps straight to a picture of a family, could it suggest they live there or used to live there. This sets the narrative. Male character is introduced in centre of the screen as he wakes up. This suggests he is the lead role in the film as he stays centralised. He walks around the house the camera follows him. This sets the scene and creates an atmosphere. Camera movement and pace speed up towards the end as the man is running around looking for someone. The camera is tracking and panning to keep the audience feel involved in what is going on and to show the audience what the man sees and what he is doing. Overall the camera movement is very slow.


Editing
Speed becomes faster in the way in which the titles come up faster, the speed of music also increases, style of the titles and music is the same, however the music is different at the start and at the end. The pace of editing is slow. Mostly straight cuts are used. As the speed of the music increases it increases the tension caused for the audience, similarly as the pace of titles becomes faster the music seems to become faster making it even more intense. Music ranges from fast to slow, indicating something might happen and that it is something out of the blue and shocking. It alerts the audience making them aware and keeping them engaged. The speed of the background music at the start of the opening is completely different from the end. This could be to signify the start and the end of the opening titles leading onto the introduction of the actual film.

Sound
The non-diegetic background music is continuous throughout and is ranging with different tempos of music throughout. It starts of quiet and eventually gets louder In order to build up suspense and create tension. This relates to the theme of thriller very well as this is a commonly used technique of thrillers. We can immediately identify that the film is a thriller due to this music as it is conventional of a thriller to have this spooky sounding fast pace music. The sound in this opening fits in really well, and links to the theme of the film. It clearly introduces the narrative and suggests to the audience that this film is going to be an action based mystery thriller hence the fast pace chasing music which when it gets quieter suggests mystery. E.g. a chase scene and the loud up-tempo music suggest the person is running and getting chased and the low tempo quieter pace music suggest that the character could be hiding.


Mise-en-scene
A continuous blue colour is used throughout the titles, giving us a calm and relaxed sort of tone to the opening. But also a mysterious sort of tone as the spotlight is blurry suggesting it is hiding something. No props or costumes used in the opening. The lighting and colour of the opening stay the same throughout.


Special Effects
No special effects are used in the opening except the spotlight effect.


Titles
Blue background being a spotlight fading in and out, with black font over lapping the blue spotlight. The titles fad in and out also in a dark blue font which connotes mystery. This makes the titles stand out to the audience and make it very clear to read. Doesn’t really link to the film, as the colours are not very significant to the sci-fi genre or to thrillers. However you could relate the colour blue to a blue light of police car sirens or to water.