The Structure of Thriller Openings

There are three basic structures of the openings of films.

1. A narrative opening with titles running throughout it.

The taking of Pelham 123 uses this style of opening. This style is very popular and clear in showing the action without distracting the audience too much with the titles, it works very well.

2. A discrete sequence.

The film Se7en uses this style of opening, this clip is often editing separately from the rest of the film. This works so well because it foreshadows themes later explored in the film, the use of extreme close ups in this creates suspense and intrigues the audience.

3.  Titles over a blank screen, followed by the narrative opening.

The film Donnie Darko uses this style of opening. I think this is effective as it creates suspense of the audience waiting for something to happen after the titles. Therefore they are left on the edge of their seats anticipating what will happen next.

There is another different style of film opening which uses Stylized Editing. When looking at The taking of Pelham 123 we noticed the title sequence was edited similarly to a music video, whereby its shot to the beat of the music. There are other types of stylized editing, such as split screen intros or cut offs. they are not as common and will grab the audiences attention because they stand out.