Se7en Opening SequenceTextual Analysis

By Grace Wainner

The first shot is a close up of an open book. This could have been done to make the audience curious to what the book os about giving a sense of mystery. The background of the shot is blurred only having the book in focused so the audience know what object to concentrate on.

The writting in this shot is sort of all over the place and it glitches on the screen which could have been done to make the audience feel unsteady and slightly uncomfortable.

Its got a vignette, which is when the corners of the frame are darkened to focus attention on the center of the frame.

Its quite an unusual shot that doesn't’t make a lot of sense to the audience at this moment in time.

This shot is similar to the shot above as it uses low key lighting. It is an extreme close up focusing on somebodies fingers which are very dirty holding a razor blade. This raises questions as to why the person is holding this and what they intend to do with it.

The main title ‘SE7EN’ flashes up on screen extremely quickly after having appeared in smaller in the top right corner and then flashes back to a small font in the top right corner again. The font is in white and being on a black background makes it stand out to the audience. The font has a glitch effect to it which puts the audience on edge and sets up the atmosphere and suspense for the film to come.

This shot is out of focus and extremely dimly lit and what the object in the background is unclear to the audience. This makes the audience curious about what's going on and makes them wan to mind out more.

The text in this shot is white so that is stands out on the black and it is at a slanted angle and handwritten font shows the desperation of the writer as if he is rushing to get it done in a frantic manor.

The transparency of these shots using different layers could be used to show time passing and also making it so that the audience can’t read what it says leaving the audience curious as to what it says as it is so unclear.

These shots also show detail and how much time this person puts into the work, however we can tell it isn’t somebody from the police and the writing is scruffy and on a ordinary lined piece of paper showing that it can’t be an official document.

This shot which is completely black and the only thing that can be seen is a drawing of a child which somebody is crossing out their eyes with a black marker. This shows the audience that the person doing this is not very nice and has vengeance against someone.

Crossing out somebodies eyes comes across as really dehumanizing and the person doing this doesn’t care about them and wants to hurt them. This will leave the audience curious as to what would make someone want to do this to somebody else.

These shots are dimly lit and contains a needle which both help to convey the darkness of the room as well as the darkness of this character.

These shots are also extreme close ups which have been used so that the audience focus on the needle and not on anything in the background.

The focus on the needle also leaves the audience wondering what the person is using the needle to sew, and why they need to sew anything.

Sound

• The sound used helps to create a tense and scary atmosphere before the film has even begun.

• It has been used to make the audience aware if the horror genre and make them aware of what will later happen in the film.

• There is layers of music played over the top of one another to create confusion and franticness.

• There are also points where the music speeds up to be in sync with the fast paced transitions between shots.