Camera work:

The shot begins with a white blur of an image, the shot then fades into a front view of a ship. This fade in and blur makes the audience feel as if the ship is coming from nowhere which makes then confused as they don’t know where the boat has come from. The camera is hand held when the shot frames the protagonist of Teddy being sea sick. This enhances the motion of the boat as the camera moves up and down. This makes the audience feel as if they are with Teddy on the boat as the camera makes them feel as if they are too rocking up and down. A variety of mid shots and close up shots are used when introducing the protagonist of Teddy to the audience. The close up shots makes the audience feel intimate with the character as they are close to him making them relate to the protagonist and decide whether he is good or bad. A flash back is used during the opening scene. The audience know this because a series of fast close up shots are used on a woman’s face. This makes the audience connect with the protagonist as they feel they are learning more about him and they begin to sympathise with him. The camera then changes from framing Teddy and changes to an establishing shot on the island that the protagonist is going to. This makes the audience feel small and vulnerable as the shot shows the entire island to be big as it covers the whole of the frame. An extremely long zoom is used when the protagonist is entering the dock. This zoom makes the audience feel uncomfortable as they feel as if the wait to get onto the island is long suggesting to them that It is a bad idea as the camera doesn’t want to go onto it. Once the protagonist is on the island, every shot is a pan shot and everything that is shot is followed by the camera. This makes the audience feel as if they are being watched as the camera spends as long as possible on each shot elongating the shots giving the impression someone is watching them. It is usual for thriller films to use pans and long shots in order to makes the audience feel liked they are being watched and it is something that as a group we would like to incorporate into our film opening.

 

Editing and Graphics:

The effect of having the opening scene start with a blurred image is to confuse the audience. This allows the producer to begin to build suspense as the audience are already confused and unsettled. The choice of blocking means that Teddy is in every shot. This suggests to the audience that he is an important character in the film Shutter Island, this is because he is shown to be desirable by the camera as it doesn’t want to have a shot without him in it. Before the flashback, depth of focus is used where Teddy is in focus and everything else is not. This makes the audience aware that the flashback is Teddy’s memory as he is the one in focus. This makes the audience sympathise with the protagonist as he is opening up to them and they feel more comfortable when he is in the shot. The flashback begins, colour is highlighted and used frequently. This shows that it is a happy memory as the bright colours are associated with joy and happiness which makes the audience reflects this emotion of happiness. Quick close ups are used to highlight the idea that it is a flash back.  As the ship is docking a long cut is used to show the ship getting closer and closer to the dock. This shot drags which makes the audience feel as if they do not want the protagonists to get off of the boat as they feel suspicious because of the dragged cut. The producer has chosen to use very little credits at the beginning of the film and only shows the production companies and the title in grey font. He/she has chosen to use minimal titles because it means that the tension and suspense is not disturbed by test in the image. This is typical technique used in thriller films.

 

Sound:

Non –diegetic score of major high key and pitch ringing is used throughout the titles. These sounds makes the audience feel uncomfortable as they are asynchronous to the genre of the film which makes them unsettled. Many thriller films use asynchronous score to make their audiences feel unsettled and tense. This sound turns to minor key distorted horns accompanied with the diegetic sound of crashing waves. These sounds together confuse the audience because the score creates a tense atmosphere but the waves enforce a calming atmosphere and these two clash making the audience confused and unsettled. As the image of the boat appears the audience realises that the horns are the boats horns. These stay consistent throughout the opening scene making the audience feel a little tense still. As the protagonist is walking through the boat he knocks into some wind chimes that make a calming ring which is disturbed by the horns of the boat. All of these contradicting sounds makes the audience uncomfortable as they are unsure on if they should be feeing tense or calm. When the island is frames the horns of the boat start to play in threes. Threes makes the audience uncomfortable because threes of anything is stereotypical for something bad to happen in thriller films (three knocks). This puts the audience on edge and makes the suspense grow. These horns the come out of pattern and start playing in a non-ordered order, because there is no specific order of the loud noises anymore the audience feel anxious as there is no structure which makes them feel uneasy. These horns transition into minor string score which makes the audience more apprehensive as minor key usually means something bad is going to happen.

 

Mise en Scene:

The costumes of the protagonists consist of suits and a long tan coloured trench coat. These costumes show the audience that they are significant as they are wearing upper class clothing. Teddy has a cut on his head covered by a plaster. This enforces the tension within the audience as they don’t know where this cut has come from which makes them nervous as they feel that violence has taken place. The protagonists are shown in natural high key lighting. This makes the audience realise that the two characters are protagonists as protagonists are usually shown in high key lighting in thriller films. We wanted to use this idea within our film opening so that our audience cans see a clear cut between who the antagonist is and who the protagonist is. During the dialogue a line is said ‘storms coming’, this makes the audience apprehensive as the weather usually projects the mood within the images. it also is where a thriller would introduce an antagonist as they use the weather to encourage the mood within the audience. Also during the dialogue the audience finds out that the protagonists are going to an institution. This makes the audience feel worried as they associate institutions with crazy people who are all possible antagonists.