Analysis of an Opening to a

Thriller Film

Now You See Me

Names of production companies are shown at the very beginning of the film: Summit Entertainment and K/O Paper Products

The music creates a sense of mystery - a theme that will prevail throughout the film

There is a voice over with close up shot of the protagonist (Jesse Eisenberg). There is also a long tracking shot to give us a view of the protagonist (or one of the protagonists) from all angles of the

room

He talks directly to the audience which entices the audience and gives the sense that we too are involved in the narrative.

The actor does card tricks with this eyes closed – creating an enigmaHe is also the actor that will give the audience the tagline for the film, 'The closer you look, the less you see’

The camera continuously cuts back to close ups of the actor -this could suggest that we

will watch the narrative unfold from his prospective, and it is therefore his interpretation of events. Or this could be relating us back to the tagline of the film - making us look closer but in actual fact the film is already one step ahead of us and has already fooled us.

This puts forward the idea of many twists and turns that are likely to come during the film - a device used to keep the audience guessing.

The film uses big locations - the first of which being New Orleans, New York, Los Angeles etc.

A suggested villain is shown to the audience at the end of the first scene. We can only see the back of the villain - they wear a dark coloured hood which evokes mystery.

Although, this could be a red herring - information used to deliberately mislead the audience.

Once the possible villain is shown, the music slows down and becomes more ominous

The next character (Woody Harrelson) is introduced but he is shown to be conning a man in our next location, New Orleans.

He could be seen as an ambiguous character and therefore difficult to determine whether or not he is a villain, a victim (seemingly not according to thisscene in particular) or a hero.

Overall, the opening to Now You See Me establishes to the audience some of the characters involved in the narrative and why we should be

interested to continue watching the film