Opening Sequence Research - The Machinist

The film I thought I'd take a look at for our opening sequence is The Machinist. I specifically chose this film as it is a mystery, thriller which is a good example as we are looking at thrillers for our movie.

The opening sequence of The Machinist starts off with a view from outside, showing someone at their home, rolling up another person into a rug/carpet. Already form this we get an enigma of who is this person? and why is he doing this? As this is happening we can hear thriller-like music in the background. It leaves the viewer in suspense and creates tension, as they are wanting to know what he is doing. After rolling him up, he hobbles to a table and places a cigarette in his mouth, then comes closer to the window which to us is a close up. His close up is gory, creepy and sort of zombie-like. We immediately want to know who this man is and so we keep on watching. As he smokes his cigarette, he has a look outside as if he is watching out for someone. We get enigmas from this, such as; who is he looking for? what has happened to his face? Why has he rolled someone up in his own home?

We then go to a scene which is shot near a river, we see him park the car and lift something out. As he lifts this person out, he struggles to walk to the river. This makes us think to what is wrong with this man. We get a close up and see his bloodshot eyes popping out of his beaten and bruised skull. The way the scene is shot in complete darkness fits with the gory character who is obviously doing wrong, throwing dead into a river. The music here changes from tension building to a more calm and relaxed song. However, mixing it with this scene makes the music seem creepy, as they are opposites put together.

As he struggles to put the dead person onto a rocky edge, before pushing him off into the river, the music makes the atmosphere very scary. We then see him spot someone in the distance with a flashlight,he quickly tries to drop him onto the stony edge before that person comes. At this point we feel very drawn in as we want to know who this other character is. When he finally puts him down, he doesn't roll. This then makes us sit at the edge of our seats as we wish to know if he gets caught. Also the close up we get of the gory character builds tension due to showing his face being scared of the other character who is approaching.

As the person carrying the flashlight comes closer, the character quickly kicks the dead character, wrapped in the rug, struggling to do so. Finally when he does fall into the river, relieved, he turns around to had back to the car. The flashlight character asks who he is and we then get a close up of he gory character. This close up has a lot of lighting on it and so we can see all the bruises and scars along with his terrifying face.

It then goes to the next scene which is him washing his hands, we so hot water pouring out the tap but what grabs our attention is the fact that he is washing his hands with bleach. Very suspensive music is added to this scene which makes you wonder what he has done. We then get a close up of a flashlight with the character still washing his hands with bleach in the background.

This film has very good use of lighting, scenes, character build-up and music. We need to take all of these into account as this is what is need to make a successful opening sequence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVPgm2bsCds