Director: David Fincher

Opening title designer: Kyle Cooper

Laura Collins

The opening works as a prologue for the film in that it introduces the character of the killer (John Doe, played by Kevin Spacey) and hints at the story. In just over 2 minutes, title designer Kyle Cooper and director David Fincher set the tone and atmosphere of Se7en as the disturbing and horrific experience that it is. Se7en is a psychological thriller with horror and neo-noir elements that ultimately make the film unique and memorable.

The opening sequence is a collection of about 70 extreme close-ups that works like a montage. This serves to simultaneously intrigue the audience with minute detail and distance the audience by not showing any wider shots that would give a clearer view of character.

The opening sequence was shot over two days and took a further five weeks to edit.

The editing is fast-paced and consists of several dissolve transitions, which are used to create a sense of disjointedness.

Cooper creates a stylish texture effect which gives the entire sequence a washed-out, sepia-like tone. The general colour used connotes a lack of feeling; flashes of red appear intermittently, connoting violence. These connotations create a sense of foreboding for the story’s dark subject matter.

A dissolve transition

The incidental music used is a remix of Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Closer’ (from 1994’s The Downward Spiral). Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project which is associated with dark and gruesome imagery.

The music is gritty and reflects the overall disturbing tone of the film.

The sequence is rich with hints about the characterisation of the film’s antagonist. For example, the audience is shown the word ‘God’ being cut out of a dollar bill. This single image conveys a lot about the antagonist; it suggests that the character believes he is God. This idea is supported throughout the film in the antagonist’s judgement of his victims and his use of the Seven Deadly Sins as punishment.

Cooper and Fincher created effective and unique title credits; ‘[Fincher] actually scratched all the credits on a scratchboard and then scanned them back in’ (Cooper).

The scratched, handwriting style of the credits was created entirely editorially and without use of After Effects that filmmakers are so used to now.

The credits twitch and flicker in and out of shots to emphasise the disjointed and unsettling atmosphere. The handwritten style of the credits was used also to ‘suggest the dark part of John Doe’s personality and his obsession’ (Cooper).

Overall the opening sequence of Se7en was ground-breaking; the New York Times deemed it as ‘one of the most important design innovations of the 1990s’.

Cooper and Fincher managed to evoke a sense of enigma which succeeds in enticing the audience. The themes of the film are hinted at in the use of connotation and suggestion yet very little of the plot is given away. The audience are prepared for the gritty and uninviting representation of New York City and the overall bleak tone of the film.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_(film)#Production

http://www.empireonline.com/features/david-fincher-fight-club-opening-credits

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/04/the-art-of-the-film-title-throughout-cinema-history/

http://www.watchthetitles.com/articles/00184-Kyle_Cooper_interview_pt_2_2