The opening sequence of Final Destination begins with the company logos and a deep organ instrumental. After a lightning strike, the camera pans down a window to reveal a doll hanging from a string, building tension. It then cuts to a fan blowing pages from a book showing graphic images of death. Intertwined with these images are shots of a teenage boy, Alex, who believes his luggage tag saved his father's life. As the wind picks up in Alex's room, the clock flickers from 1:00 to 1:80, matching the number of the upcoming Flight 180 displayed at the airport. These unsettling images and the premonition of death foreshadow impending tragedy.
1. Opening sequence final destination
The opening sequence of final destination starts of with the company logo and a deep organ based
instrument. Superimposition of the company name and the logo of the company ‘New line cinema’
More inserts are used to show what production it is. Later the screen fades black and we hear a loud
thunder and see the lightening happen. The use of this gives us a spooky feel to the movie straight
away because you expect thriller genre’s to include slow paced deep melodic soundtrack in the
background, and the use of the thunder continues the conventions of thrillers as scary on your feet
types of movies. From the lightening we get a jump cut to a window to show us a sense of place, this
adds dramatic effect a we’re in a long shot and suddenly we are in a close up of a window. The
camera is then seeing craning from up to down and while that is happening we have diegetic sound
of the thunder continuing but this time we have a use of graphic match to blend in some sort of doll
into the scene as the thunder strikes, the after a few more seconds the camera tracks down a bit
more and we see a sort of string and from it the doll that we first see is seen hanging down from it.
The use of this long take builds tension as we don’t usually see a small doll hanging down from a
string and the use of graphic match allows the viewers to see something different before it takes
place. Later on we get a wipe to a table, and we can see a shadow of the doll hanging from the
string. The shadow shows the viewers a sort of hanging, as if someone committed suicide or a
murder. This connotes a death sort of feeling as you now expect this movie to have some sort of
killing taking place, which once again leads to conventions of thriller genre’s and sub genre’s. Next
the camera pans from left to right and we suddenly see a working fan. When the viewers se this the
music suddenly becomes fast paced and the pitch rises, to continue there’s also the diagetic sound
of the fan swirling. We also see a blurry mask usually seen in Halloween in the rotating fan. The use
of a high pitched tune raises our awareness and draws our attention immediately, and this goes well
with the mask even though its blurry, it raises questions in our heads as we don’t know why the
sudden image of the mask appears. We then get a fade into a bed but an extreme close up of the
bed and we see tickets and a passport being thrown being thrown on to the bed. This may show
some sort of travelling taking place. We get a cut shot into the fan again and we can hear the blades
rotating once again, and this time we can see pages of a book flickering from the wind created by
the fan, and then the pages stop flickering and stop on a page with a execution picture taking place
on the page, the camera zooms in it and we can the caption underneath the picture saying ‘a lesson
in history’ This may mean that there is something in the past that might be of certain interest for us
viewers and once again raises questions. More pages are then been flicked and we see pictures of
dead bodies, and these quickly dissolve or fade in and out every couple of seconds. This connotes
that the book that is being shown may be about history and death suffered amongst certain people,
and can be related to the thriller theme. The camera then fades up back to the fan and as its moving
fro left to right we hear an evil laugh, This means that something bad might be about to takes place
or a cunning plan is about to unfold. More graphic match is uses and this time it’s to shows different
pages of the book being skimmed through, and then it suddenly pauses on a page of a cross and
pope and we get parallel sound of a gospel choir. This is to show that religion might have a part to
play, or some sort of belief is being worshipped. The parallel sound later dies down and turns into
violins and we see a note in bright red saying’ This is the end’ The use of bright red alerts us as it is
bright and usually gets represented with danger.
2. This message is later faded out and we get a sound bridge of a woman shouting out ‘alex’ and the
scene cuts into a mother looking for alex. The use of a sound bridge helps the viewer to hear
something before the scene is taking place which settles us in a bit quicker. The mum is seen putting
clothes in a suitcase of her son alex and we can see their a normal middle class American family as
they live in a house with family pictures/posters around the room and as it’s her sons room we see
clothes hanging around with work on the desk. Her mom is seen removing the tag of a previous
flight from the suit case, but her son immediately rushes and stops her saying ‘you gotta leave that
on, the last plane crashed and it survived with dad so it’s good luck’ her mum replies ‘where did you
get that daft idea from’ and alex’s dad says ‘I’m still here’ . This gives us a little bit of information
about what happened in the past and that her son believes in luck even though it may be of the
silliest of things. This goes well with the supernatural theme of final destination as it’s some sort of
outer power helping him to believe. His dad later says ‘your 17 going holiday with your friends, live it
alex, you got the whole life ahead of ya’ . We get no diagetic sound of some more orchestral
instruments, and we can see alex’s face look up in freight and the camera is slowly zooming into his
face into a close up to indicate strong emotion. The use of his dad’s phrase must have sparked a
memory in alex, and the use of the orchestral soundtrack adds to the thriller mode of address
(creepy). We then get a cut shot to alex sleeping, and we go straight into a jump cut into a propeller
of a model aircraft. It is seen moving from some sort of wind, and we now have the camera tracking
this gust of wind, as it passes through paper posters books and clothes are seen moving, and we
eventually have a high angle shot on alex with the wind blowing his face. There’s also an eery type of
sound almost a screech to dictate the wind, and as it moves it goes louder in volumeThe use of a
high angle shows vulnerability to suggest that this supernatural thing is in more power. The clock is
then seen flicking from 1:00 to 1:80. This use of flickering shows some sort of paranoia as the time
never goes to 1:80 and continues to follow thriller conventions of spooky, supernatural
surroundings. We get a graphic match to a airport screen showing flight number 180. We know its an
airport as we can hear the aeroplanes taking of and staff calling into the microphone.