Treatment

We fade into a forest, illuminated by the cold mid winter dawn. A man is seen venturing through the woods. The leaves crunch beneath his feet, the snow gathers on his toes.
Twigs snap in the background; he thinks nothing of it.
Seconds pass, and he begins to dwell on the sound.
fearing a presence, he takes a brief look around, as if someone was there.
He reaches down to bury the contents of his pocket, wrapped in a small plastic bag.
In the background, a suited man wearing a venetian mask appears, just watching.
He stands up again, the venetian masked man in the distance behind him.
he looks around, noticing the man.
He promptly starts walking forward to leave the forest.
Everytime he turns to look around, the man is closer than before, but standing perfectly still, in the same position as ever.
we cut to a darkly lit scene of him sitting in a room, evidently trapped.
It begins alternating between him walking through the forest, slowly being caught up to, and him locked in the room.
The final scenes involve him stopping, with the masked man less than a metre away, staring at the back of his head.
It cuts to the dark room again, the man is sitting in the corner, clutching his knees, whilst the masked man is staring at him, looming over.
It ends as he looks up to the camera.

What do directors try to establish in the opening of thrillers?

In the opening of thriller films, directors can use a variety of different techniques to captivate the audience and draw them into the film. Though these methods vary, it is important to note that the aim is always to engage head on with the audience. By definition, thrillers feed off suspense and mystery and therefore this is what the director will often hope to establish in the opening few minutes. This can be done, as in Casino Royale, by dropping the audience in mid-way through a running case/narrative, or it can be done, in a TV series like Whitechapel, by dropping the viewer immediately into the story and at once giving them a dark, shadowy mystery to solve, in this particular case who the dark silhouette standing in the gate is and what relationship the teenager with the gashed throat has to them. Similarly Double Idemnity opens with a shocking revelation that traditionally would be found at the end of the film but instead is located at the start; this draws the audience in the same way a punch in the face would snatch up someone’s attention.

Arguably though, the most important thing to do in a story before it truly starts is the location. This is done extensively in LA Confidential where a roughly five minute exposition explains carefully both the physical and the moral setting of the film and, though it gives away nothing of the storyline – which doesn’t truly start until almost half an hour into the film – this opening skilfully sets the tone and, in this case at least, the tempo for the rest of the movie.

Yet the primary tools of a story are the characters it involves and oddly this is not always prioritised in the opening few minutes of the film, The Third Man, for example, spends a lot of time explaining about the lawlessness of post war Vienna and doesn’t get onto introducing the characters until relatively far in. In contrast to this, Se7en uses meticulous detail to establish the steely façade of central character Detective Somerset (of course as the film progresses we see far more of this character’s inner persona come through). David Fincher, the film’s director, goes about this very simply but very effectively, showing how ordered and logically placed everything in the detective’s apartment is and leaving it mainly up to the viewer to deduce what they can from this. Comparisons can be drawn between the routine opening scenes of Se7en and the scenes in Whitechapel that establish its own lead character.

Of course, as much as everything else, the tone is very important to set up in the opening stages of a movie. As I have already said, this is very successfully done in Se7en and LA Confidential, but maybe one of the best examples of tone setting is the murky and violent Essex Boys that uses everything from pale and grainy lights to ragged voices drowned out by the suburban hysteria that surrounds them and shots that don’t quite show you everything to establish that if there’s one thing this film isn't then it’s nice. Similarly in the much lighter Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, the film appears is over exposed, giving the picture a dull, almost sepia appearance, but at the same time almost cartoonish that coincides with the films comparatively light spirit and humour. Layer Cake, as oppose to this, makes its opening sequences look very cool, smooth and professional which sets the tone for the rest of the movie just as the grainy footage and over the top slow motion sequences do in Lock, Stock.

It might seem a little odd to say that thriller directors seek to establish the genre in the opening of thrillers, but this is because it is the easiest thing to establish. To make someone assume they're watching a thriller, all that really needs to be done is for someone to mention criminal activity and have a shot of a gun or a dead body. Of course, some classic thrillers, Rear Window springs to mind, doesn’t quite go about doing this in that way, but in that instance the tension is established by the claustrophobic camera work. However, normally the genre can be established just through a combination of everything else the director tries to establish in a thriller opening.

Themes, however, quite separate from storyline, are often much more easily established. The most common found in thrillers of this kind tend to corruption, crime, deceit, lust and alienation/isolation, all of which are present in a film like Se7en although only the crime and alienation are explored in the opening with the character of Somerset and dark city that he inhabits. In the game LA Noire, which is about as close to a film as a game can get, themes are prioritised in the surprisingly slow moving opening cut screen. It talks of the ideas of dreams – Hollywood – and the reputation that the city has and the reality that counter balances this, perhaps not impacting much on the plot, but definitely opening up a theme present throughout the rest of the game.