Psychological Thriller's Opening Analysis

The Butterfly Effect Opening Analysis:



At the begining of the film there is a quote from the chaos theory that gives the audience an explanation to the idea that the film is based on:

It has been said that something as

small as the flutter of a butterfly's

wing can ultimately cause a typhoon
halfway around the world.

-Chaos Theory

It appears on a black screen in white writing, which is quite a typical convention of titles in psychological thrillers (either that or red coloured text). The opening of the film starts at the end and goes backwards in time, this technique helps keep the audience guessing and at the edge of their seat as they are unable to quite figure out what is going on onscreen, which helps to keep them interested and is also a common convention used in psychological thrillers.

Throughout the opening of the film there is a mixture of diegtic and non-diegtic sound. At the very beginning there is non-diegtic music playing in the background that heightons tension to keep the audience on the edge of their seat.

There are a viariety of different camera angles used throughout the opening of the film, however the most common types of camera angles seem to be Medium Shots and Close Ups. Both of these shots allow the audience highlight an important piece of dialogue (MS) or an object or emotion of particular importance (CU).

The amount of characters that the audience see are quite limited so as not to bombard the audience with too many characters all at once. Moreover, during the film the costumes that the characters are wearing seem to give an insight into the characters mental state or mood as well as their position in society or job. For example, the boy (the main character) is wearing a blue tracksuit top with a red streak down the middle. The colour connotations for blue is usually calm and collected, whereas, red has connotations of danger, which links in with the character as he is shown to be calm and collected in some parts of the opening (e.g. whilst writing in his diary at breakfast) and then dangerous (e.g. whilst holding a knife in the kitchen and is unable to remember how it got there). Another example of costume giving an insight into the characters possible state of mind is the main characters mum. She is seen wearing a beige uniform, which has possible colour connotations of neutrality and therefore peace of mind.

Misery Opening Analysis:

The opening of Misery starts as if it is a normal day, which is a typical convention of a psychological thriller. However, there are also many signs and signifiers that something is, or is going to go, wrong. For example, there is a CU of the main character writing 'THE END' could be a possible signifier for the end of his life. The main character is also wearing a red shirt with a black t-shirt underneath. Both of these colours have ominous connotations of danger and death. During the opening ten minutes, there is a flashback to before the main character went to finish his book, in the remote montainous location. This gives the audience an insight to his motives for being there and also serves as a way to confuse the audience to make them stay focused on what is happening onscreen. Flashbacks seem to be a generic convention of psychologial thrillers as both The Butterfly Effect and Misery have them.

For the majority of the opening of the film the lighting is natural. However, whenever something bad is about to happen the lighting becomes slighly darker. For example, when the main character was driving down the mountain the lighting was darker in comparision to when he was in the house writing the novel.

In addition, many different camera angles were used. However, similarly to The Butterfly Effect the most common seemed to be MS and CU. When the main character woke up for the first time after the accident the camera was a low angled CU shot the the woman, Annie. This camera angle made her seem dominant and the audience feel inferior and vulnerable and could be an indication to her not necessarily being as nice as she seems.

The colours red and black came up repeatidly in the opening of this film. For example, the tablets that he took were red and the main female character Annie was shown wearing all black twice. Therefore, it seems that another generic convention of psychological thriller is to have the colours red and black dominate mise-en-scene.