Researching film openings - 'Murder By Numbers'

'Murder by Numbers' is a psychological thriller starring Sandra Bullock, Ben Chaplin and Ryan Gosling. Two gifted high school students execute a "perfect" murder - then become engaged in an intellectual contest with a seasoned homicide detective. The film has extremely mysterious elements and so this implies psychological elements are going to be used. This is captured in the opening sequence of the film.

After watching the forst 10 or so minutes of the film we managed to get many ideas into what we want our film opening to be like. The screen graps chosen give a insight into the film and also the elemnts that stood out to our group

Here are the screen grabs and explanations.

The opening of the film starts with ochestral music and an establishing shot, this adds gloom and also a loom into the dark plot and atmosphere.

 

The opening sequence is a bird eye veiw shot. This gives the audience an idea of what is happening and who is invovled.

 

The second screen grap we have shows is focused on a prop, the gun, this tells audiences that there is murder invovled in the plot and the two characters being filmed may be invovled.

 It is in a secluded area around the sea, with a scruffy, old and almost demolished house. This immediately sets a mysterious atmosphere and as audience you know something is going to happen. Either pretty soon or later on in the film.

Our next screen grap is of a dead body. Audiences dont know how the body got there and a medium shot is used to have establishing effect. This makes audiences think back to the gun.

A close up of the dead ladies face gives audiences an insight into the murder and also gives a horror like effect.