Analysis of 2 Psychological Thrillers

This is the best video I could find for the film, the sound isn't completely in sync and it has subtitles but I was still able to analyze it.

Triangle (2009)
The titles that have been used look really basic but the way they appear on the screen is really effective. We see small white block capitals which appear on a black screen, once they appear they then split so we see three of the same title, the two that have split off of it then disappear and the middle one stays for a while before fading out itself. Having the three titles could represent the three sides of a triangle which then fits with the title and the fading out and disappearing may fit with the storyline.
The opening is made up of short clips the first being the two characters is a dark room and then the rest both in the house and the garden, in-between each clip the titles are shown this helps the audience to think about the clip they've just seen while looking at the titles.
A house and garden has been used for the setting of the opening but the first clip that we are shown is in a dark room. The dark room shows the audience that something bad is going to happen or is happening whereas the house and garden shows everyday life.
Within the opening we are introduced to two characters these being a little boy and his mother. Not much is given away about the characters which really helps to keep an open narrative but what is shown keeps the audiences attention and makes them want to carry on watching.
Within the opening we see a variety of sources of water such as a swimming pool, sprinklers, tears and paint, water is a key representative of psychological thrillers so it helps to portray the genre.
The atmosphere is made to make the audience feel quite strange, its very quiet and the mother seems to be worried and panicky which puts the audience on edge and wondering what is happening and what is going to happen.
Slow quiet music is played through the opening, with use of a woman singing a lullaby. It is backed my piano to make it eerie, we also hear the diegetic sound of water at times and the diegetic dialogue from both the characters.
Open narrative has been used, the audience can start to piece together the storyline of the film through the opening but wouldn't have a clue on what is going to happen further on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf-ZwM-3X1w
The embedding has been disabled on this video and I wasn't able to find another one like it on YouTube.

Cube (1997)
The use of the titling that the opening uses is great, it fits perfectly with the name of the film and its really creative at the same time. They've used a white screen and one by one small rectangle and square blocks appear on the screen to make up the title, this then makes the title look 3D. The screen then goes black and the edge of the letters are then white to give it a shadowed effect.
The opening starts straight away with a cubed room, we then see further on in the opening that the room leads into other cubed rooms through small tunnels in the walls. This use of setting confuses the audience and really gets them thinking, no other settings have been used through out the opening so it really helps with the narrative as nothing is given away to what is actually happening and how the characters have got into the rooms in the first place.
The openings starts with an eye opening and then reveals a man lying on the floor of the cubed room. The audience has no indications of who the man is, what he is doing there or why. The character seems to be very confused and scared with shows the audience that maybe he has the same questions as the audience themselves.
The themes of the opening help to also get the audience thinking, the rooms are cubed and have a set of squares on each wall including the floor and ceiling. Each room that the audience is introduced to is a different colour, the man starts off in a white room, he then opens one of the tunnel doors to find a blue room which represents the main colour of the genre, then a red room which connotes death and murder and then finally an orange coloured room, this is the room that the man then enters and gets killed in. This could then mean that the colours of the rooms are a trick and that the man avoided the red room due to the colour but thought that the orange one would be ok.
The opening gives a strange atmosphere, it makes the audience feel on edge as there is no indication on what is going to happen next but it also feels lonely due to the character being on their own.
Throughout the opening we here non-diegetic noises which sound like wind from out side the room, odd creaking and other strange noises are also used.
Finally there's a perfect example of an open narrative that has been used as hardly anything has been given away so the audience has no idea what is going on or what is going to happen in the rest of the film.

Different Psychological Thrillers.

These are a number of Psychological Thrillers that I looked at to give me ideas about our own film opening. They are both new and older films that have come out.

Timeline Of Titles in Psychological Thrillers

0.01 - 1 secs Carol Kane
0.03 - 1 secs Colleen Dewhust
0.10 - 7 secs Film Title
0.21 - 3 secs Also starring Tony Beckley
0.25 - 2 secs Rachel Roberts
0.29 - 2 secs Ron O'Neal
0.33 - 2 secs Steven Anderson
0.38 - 3 secs Editor Sam Vitale
0.42 - 2 secs Production Designer
0.46 - 2 secs Music By ...
0.50 - 2 secs Director of photography ...
0.55 - 3 secs Executive Producers ...
1.02 - 3 secs Written By ...
1.09 - 3 secs Produced By ...
1.16 - 4 secs Directed By ...




0.02 - 4 secs - A roman Polanski film
0.06 - 4 secs - Film Title
0.15 - 3 secs - Isabelle Adjani
0.17 - 3 secs - Melvyn Douglas
0.20 - 3 secs - Jo Van Fleet
0.23 - 3 secs - Bernard Fresson
0.26 - 4 secs - 3 actors names
0.30 - 4 secs - 3 actors names
0.34 - 6 secs - 6 actors names
0.40 - 6 secs - 6 actors names
0.46 - 5 secs - 6 actors names
0.51 - 5 secs - 6 actors names
0.56 - 4 secs - + Shelley Winters as the concierge
1.00 - 4 secs - Based on the novel by
1.04 - 3 secs - Production designer
1.07 - 4 secs - Costume, make-up and hairdressing
1.11 - 4 secs - Film, sound and assistant editor
1.16 - 5 secs - sound mixer, sound re-recording, sound boom operator
1.21 - 4 secs - assistant directors
1.25 - 4 secs - camera operator and assistants
1.29 - 5 secs - continuity, production secretary, dialogue director, casting, unit publicist still photographer and optical effects.
1.34 - 4 secs - art directors, set dresser, property master, wardrobe,
all rights reserved copyright.
1.38 - 6 secs - colour by East Man Colour Filmed with panovision equipment, recording studios, special photography
1.42 - 2 secs - production manager, unit manager
1.46 - 5 secs - associate producer and executive producer
1.51 - 4 secs - music by and conducted by
1.55 - 3 secs - director of photography
1.58 - 4 secs - screenplay by
2.02 - 4 secs - produced by
2.06 - 5 secs - directed by

Within both openings the title is shown near the very start of it, in 'When a stranger calls' it appears at 10 seconds and in the Tenant it appears at 6 seconds. Both openings have the same sort of layout with the titles, they both show what type of film it is and who has distributed it, then they show a few of the box office actor names in it to keep the audiences attention and then they show the title. The actors names then carry on and then they round it up with the things like, music, photography, screenplay and then finally Written, produced and directed by.
From comparing the two openings it has shown me that I should set my opening out much like this. I will try to keep the same sort of order of titles to keep with this trend within psychological thrillers as well as all openings.

Psychological Thriller Moodboard

Strangers Re-make

Juno Re-make

Momento Re-make