The Shinning v Seven
opening titles sequences
- create interest
- genre
- titles
- introduce characters
- setting ( time/place )
- narrative
The Shinning opening title sequence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a-MS-lB8gM
- visuals are everyday and boring
- dull, long journey of a car going on shot after shot
- juxtaposition between the visuals and sound
- music makes you uncomfortable and unsettling.
- the music is foreshadowing
- music sets the genre
- opening sequences are often a simply A - B, this shows that
- music comes in straight away, very low this puts you in a low mood as its not very ear pleasing and puts you on edge. Camera adds to this as its twists. Physical effects the audience and makes them feel uneasy
- bird eye view extra high, makes you look to feel the high. camera follows the road and sound gets stranger.
- movement in the titles, bright and in your face.
- feel nervous for the car and people in it even though we don't know them
- point where u expected to cut into the car, he takes you out again.
- the meaning of the journey is to show how isolated they are, it is showing how far away from help they are.
- the sound starts to ramp up, all different sounds come in such as walling and screaming, but every shot is still stunning
- echo in the back. like a scream.
- changes weather, shows more isolation
- lands on setting at the end
Seven opening title sequence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k2gsEI34CE
- steady and low beat throughout, intense in a low key way, sharp noises over it.
- close up images throughout
- haven't met a character physically but we have seen a lot of character development ( getting you interested )
- key words, intercourse, god, fantasticing and the pen high lighting drawing you to words, when you made these words to the images your seeing it gets dark
- this person is creating scarp books
- dark room, photography developing pictures, makes you wonder why they have to do it alone
- writing close together and lots of words, shows a typical type of mind
200 on the shining
200 on seven
compare and contrast the two
750 overall
The Shinning vs Seven
The genre in the Shinning is established by the music as the shots are simple and of beautiful scenery. The music in the opening title is unsettling and uncomfortable, this is because it is in a minor key and uses heavy brass. The music is also very low which puts you in a low mood as its not pleasing to the ear which makes you on edge. As the opening title goes on the music begins to ramp up, all different sounds come in such as walling and screaming. There is also an echo placed in the music which sounds like a high pitched scream, which is creepy and shows the genre of horror. The immediate dark music is foreshadowing the rest of the movie. There is a juxtaposition created during this opening title from the visuals and sounds. At the beginning of the scene the camera focuses on a lake with a slim isolated island in it, as the camera moves towards this it twists and turns. This physical effects the audience and adds to the uneasy feeling. The camera then goes into an extra high bird eye view, while following the curvy round road, this makes us feel unsteady and slightly nauseous. The titles in this scene are big and blue, drawing all your attention to them. The narrative from this opening title is focused on someone or a few people driving in their car to a location up in the mountains. This creates the idea of isolation as they are driving further and further away from sociality. Even though we don’t physically met any characters I believe that the people in the car are the characters and we can already tell a lot about them without needing meeting them. I think this opening title sets up the idea that something bad is/will happen and makes the audience feel intrigued to what that will be.
The genre in seven is shown through both music and visuals. The sound and visuals are parallel and work together to create the horror and triller theme. The sound in this title scene consists of non-diegetic and diegetic and is almost indescribable because it sounds so tortured. The sound makes the already sinister imagery of this scene go from being uncomfortable to undoubtedly tense, making the audience have goosebumps. The constantly changing pitch in the diegetic sound, such as creaking and clicking, builds suspense for the audience. The use of the camera adds to the horror and triller genre as it uses close up to focus on the disturbing images that are portrayed in this opening tittle. The cuts between shots can be very drastic and fast even though the shot its self is very still, this is done to excite the audience as it is spontaneous. The images also fade and over lap each other to keep the audience engaged. The tittles also engage the audience as there is a black screen forcing the audience to read them. Event though we don’t physically met any characters, we still get character development from the person behind all the writing and pictures. We can tell he is obsessive and controlling by the way he writes in his note pad. This opening title is dark and suspicious creating the theme / idea that the person behind it is a stalker, murder or a physio. This is creating the idea that who ever is behind it will later go on and do something terrible.
The Shinning and Seven are both classed as psychological trillers / horrors and both movies show this successfully their opening sequences. They both the show the genre through music and sound. The Shinning and Seven both use uncomfortable, unsettling and tense music which represents the basic horror movie sound. This is successfully done in both opening tittles as it lets the audience know that something horrific will happen later on in the movie. The sound used in both these opening titles play a big role, as there is no dialogue the music is used to tell us what dialogue does not. This is why the sound is so successfully effective in both opening titles as it has to tell us how to feel without using words.
The first significant difference between the opening title sequences from the Shinning and Seven is the shot types and editing. The shots used in the Shinning are held for a long period of time and all different types of camera techniques are used, whereas in Seven all of the shots are up close. The shots from seven create an erratic and rapid sequence of shots making the audience feel engaged. However the shots from the shining allow the audience to feel uneasy and endanger due to the use of heights and curvy thin roads.
