Monday 4 January 2010

Analysis for the Opening Sequence of 'SAW'

I have decided to analyse ‘SAW’ as it is a well known horror film.

The titles on the film show the production companies; ‘Loins Gate Films’ and ‘Twisted Pictures’. It then tells the audience who made the film in a wavy font, this moves up and down as it fades out onto the black background. A blue light appears from the top of the screen, when it moves down it reveals a closed eye. The blue light moves off the screen making it black again. The title fades up onto the dark background in the same wavy font as before. A piercing metal type sound joins the title as bigger ‘SAW’ letters move around it. The blue light comes back onto the screen, a straight cut shows a man open his eyes and open his mouth under water, this creates bubbles as he panics for breath. The sound of water and him coughing makes the audience want to know what has happened to him. The blue light goes down the plug whole; this tells the audience that he is in a bath tub. We see him stumble out of the bath in low key lighting whist hearing him coughing.

As he moves about we hear a chain being dragged, he starts to ask for help and panics as he hears someone talking to him. This makes the audience wonder who the other person is. Suddenly the lights are turned on and we see the man who was in the bath tub react to the bright lights. We see the lights turn on one by one as the room gets brighter. A point of view shot shows the audience his blurred vision from the lights. The camera cuts to a man holding onto a bar above his head with a cut on his face in an untidy shirt. The camera shows an establishing shot from the man’s point of view of the room they are in. It appears to be a very unclean small public toilets, this tells the audience where the characters are, however this is still an unclear idea to where they are, when it is and who they are. As the music becomes dramatic, the camera tilts down to a dead man on the floor covered in blood, it zooms out in a spiral motion to add affect to the dead body face down on the floor. The sound is almost like a person screaming. The audience are then shown a close up of the bloody dysfunctional head, a handheld cassette player in one hand, and a pistol gun in the other. This makes the audience members want to know who the dead man on the floor is and why he is holding a cassette player and a pistol.

This opening sequence makes many enigmas for the audience to think about, it gives the titles of a film, in a genre related font, and it also gets the audience interested. This opening sequence tells the audience its genre as it had low key lighting, however it also has high key lighting to make the characters feel intimidated, it has dramatic and creepy music. It includes the typical things included in a horror film; guns, blood and gore, unknown places and confused characters. I used this opening sequence example as it has many of the things for a good opening sequence.

Emma Jopson

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