The film "Premonition" is an influence for my thriller film opening as it is about a housewife having a premonition about her husband being killed in a car accident as a large truck collides with his car. This is similar to my idea as in my idea a girl has a dream of her boyfriend attempting to murder her by the use of suffocation.
The beggining intorduces the audience to those who distributed the movie by adding their trademark logo to the film. There were three main distributors of this movie, these were, Tristar Pictures (a Sony Entertainment company), Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures and Hyde Park Entertainment. The text gradually appears in a subtle way in a white, bold font and the dissolves into the black background, this suggest that this movie is going to have a subtleness which will continue throughtout. The Production company is then presented with flickering text which could be a connotation of an abnormality. "An Ashok Amritraj/ Offspring Production. After the production company, the director "Mennan Yapo" is presented in a larger font to show his involvement and importance in the film. The main actor is the presented as "Sandra Bullock", after this the title of the movie is presented to the audience. Whilst the title sequence is presented on the screen, non-diegetic sound is playing as there is an eerie type of background sound to set the atmosphere and mood.
Suddenly the screen then dissolves from a black out to an overhead shot of a woman sitting in her car, at first it looks as if she is crying but she is simply being given a surprise by her husband, we can assume it is her husband due to the body language shown between one another. There is then a close-up and tracking as they approach a house and then the camera changes into a midshot of the back of the couple and the camera zooms out into an establishing shot so that the audience are aware of the characters surroundings and they get a clear picture of the settings. The sign "SOLD" suggests that the male character has bought the house. The camera the shows a long shot and pan of the couple getting ready to settle down into their new home. This scene suggests that they are beggining to settle down, and the scene introduces the characters to the audience.
All of a sudden a pure white flash of light dominates the screen this connotates the idea of her having a dream or premonition. Then it dissolves into a CU of the female character in bed waking up due to the diegetic sound of a church bell, we then are introduced to a little girl running into her mothers room this suggest that time has passed since the couple bought the house, and the couple transformed into a clear nuclear family. The little girl asks her mother when her father was coming home, this automatically creates a foreshadowing effect as she asks about her father and the mother assumes that he will be coming home soon.
An establishing shot of an elementary school is shown on the screen to create a picture of the setting in the audiences head. The camera then begins to track the car as it moves forward and a sthe children get out of the car. The mother is dressed in a typical housewife wardrobe as she wears a sweatshirt when dropping the children to school and she drives a SUV which is a family oriented car. She makes sure that the children do not forget their lunches which suggests her staying in her characters role.
An overhead shot takes over the screen as it tracks her travelling back to her house, as this event is taking place, the non-diegetic background music begins to play to create an eerie atmosphere. The rest ove the credits begin to dissolve in and out of the screen. The camera begins to track her everyday routine. There is a shot that tracks her shadow as she goes for a run. An extreme close-up appears as she is in the shower almost looking as if she was drowning in her sorrows and the camera follows the water as moves slowly down her neck and then travels down to her back as she turns around.
A general pan of the house is shown to illustrate their current living condition. A long shot is displayed as she it highlights her role as a housewife taking part in domestic labour. A cross-cutting appears on the screen as the female character begins to talk to her friend on the phone, this type of editing is very subtle and continuity is clearly shown when they both are busy doing jobs within the house.
She then gets off the phone to find a message on her answering machine recorded by her husband, the tone of voice suggests that they both had an argument and the camera begins to zoom into an extreme close-up of her face and the phone to capture the emotion on her face. He then rushes off and says the words "is that you?", this implies that he was having an intimate relationship with someone else as his wife and him were having problems, that phone call helps the audience establish what was going on in their relationship.
The doorbell rings and the camera follows her as she goes to answer it. A sudden reaction shot is shown when she opens the door and a sherriff answers the door. The woman is then told that her husband was killed in a car accident, the atmosphere suddenly changes as a non-diegetic drum beat dominates the dialogue. An over the shoulder shot shows the reaction of the female and focuses on her expression on her face as she does not know how to react. The atmosphere changes again as the diegetic dialogue is drowned out to create a form of echoing, this helps the audience understand the characters emotions and feelings as she is in great shock.
There is great amount of continuity in the editing however some of the shots are unstable and you can notice that the camera is shaking. However the crosscutting is extremely smooth and clean.
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