Analysis of previous student work-Third Floor

It is clear from the start that something is not right due to the soundtrack. It is rather eerie and makes you wonder what is happening. It creates a sense of enigma. The titles run for a long time which also builds up suspense.

We only see the back of the person entering the elevator. This makes us wonder who he/she is and we want to carry on watching to discover what will happen/what he/she is entering the elevator for. In another light, we only see one side of the person. This could suggest that there are two sides to his/her personality. The fact that the person is wearing black suggests that they are dark and corrupt. They are a flawed character. This is more typical of heroes in Thrillers.

When the person leaves the elevator, we see a shot of the 'victim' on the floor, he is slowly revealed to us, thus building up suspense. We only see part of his face however, when it is shown. Again, this suggests that there are two sides to this character and that he is flawed. We also believe that he has been murdered, this proves to be a slight red herring as we discover when he opens his eye. This again points to the fact that there is something wrong with him as it is said that the eye is the window to a person. It simply creates a sense of enigma.

We then see the character who attacked the victim walking into the lift. This time we see the attack take place. This means that the trailer has started at the end of the narrative and that the whole opening is a flashback of what has happened. This is very common in Thriller's as it builds enigma and helps to tell the story from a person's point of view.

We see a recurring shot of the eye at the end. This confirms that the the opening has been a flashback as it is the same person all along.

An important thing to note is that most of the film is in grey-scale. We know from this that there is a dark and twisted plot and that society is much the same.

The location of this film is important. We do not know where the story is set, we only know the area of the building that it is set in. This creates suspense as we wonder where they are and why an elevator is used! It confuses us, just as Thriller openings should

The whole opening builds suspense and makes us want to carry on watching the film. We want to know who these people are and what their story is. We feel a great sense of enigma.

This has re-enforced the fact that our opening needs to build up suspense and enigma. We could possibly use grey-scale to help with this. Our characters must have a dark and twisted past and should be shown to have two sides. We could set out opening in an urban/heavily populated location, but not tell the audience where it is.