The document discusses the opening sequence of the film Limitless. It uses techniques like close-ups, zooms, and sound effects to create confusion and uncertainty for the audience. Close-ups of characters and objects imply importance but provide little context. Zooms slow the pace, while banging sounds suggest someone is trapped amid the slow editing pace. Overall, these techniques aim to engage the audience from the start by leaving them wondering what happened.

1. The opening sequence of Limitless, uses all 4 areas of media language; Cinematography, Mise-En-Scene,
Editing and Sound to engage the audience from the moment it starts. The beginning of the extract begins
by confusing the audience, as it starts part way through the narrative, leaving the audience to wonder
what has happened, encouraging them to continue watching.
During the extract the director creates uncertainty for the audience. It does this in several ways. Firstly, he
uses a lot of close ups of both the characters and objects and places in the room. This suggests to the
audience that these are of importance, however they are being given little information to work with and
understand what has happened therefore not knowing if the are significant for good or bad reasons.
Whilst this is happening the director also uses zooms to slow down the pace of the editing and make the
audience feel perplexed. At the same time as this banging sound effects are being used to connote that
someone is trapped, or something is happening on a time scale, this is a juxtaposition with the slow paced
editing as the knocking makes the extract seem more upbeat.

2. Se7en uses many conventions of the thriller genre, for
example;
The extract begins as we are shown a series of faced paced
clips, formed into a montage. The montage is not in
chronological order, this creates the idea that the
character is in the middle of an investigation, creating
confusion for the audience. During the montage, one
image has been blurred this can connote a sense of
danger, and unknown.
The sound during the opening extract is non diegetic, this
creates and builds the atmosphere during the first few
minutes. This creates a sense of mystery for the audience.
The audio also had no lyrics, therefore we got no narrative
from the opening sequence.

3. Flightplan had a much different approach to the thriller genre, because of this it
fitted different types of conventions to the other sequences we looked at.
During the extract the director uses Mise-En-Scene to show contrast. For example at
the beginning of the extract the high key and low key lighting shows the contrast
between the two scenes that are being crosscutted. High key lighting is used
whenever the woman is in the morgue, this is an anti-stereotype of thriller
movies, as stereotypically low key lighting is often used to create mass amounts
of confusion and mysteriousness.
Also during the extract the director uses cinematography to make the woman look
weak. For example, a few high angle shots of the woman are used. This makes
her look really small in comparison to the other people in the scene with her.
Linking with this, Mise-En-Scene is used to also connote that the woman is weak.
We know this because at the beginning she is sat at the train station, however
train stations are stereotypically busy, therefore this suggests she is alone. This is
a convention of the thriller genre as during thriller films, when danger is about to
happen the victim is alone.
At the very beginning of the extract the editing is very faced paced and non-continuous,
imitating a train the location swiftly changes to a train station.