Opening Scene Narration -Ms G

Before making the opening scene for my thriller. It is very important to use some generic conventions towards thriller films as a baseline for what to include within my thriller, more importantly; the opening scene.

By stating "using generic conventions as a baseline for what to include". This is simply following a simliar structure and pattern of what thriller films include within their narrative and plan that even make up the narrative in the first place.
The reason why this appears to be a baseline and is also a generic convention towards all thrillers is because we will always be using some form of every mirco-element.
An example of one element called Iconography that will be included in our thriller will be the main character, a mid-shot focuses on him while he is holding a knife. This follows the generic convention of iconography used in thrillers as it involves including the use of at least one weapon (prop) at some point within the film.
Even a harmless kitchen utensil can be presented as a deadly weapon, this can give the feeling for the character that not even his own home is safe if even a simple utensil can now be turned into a lethal weapon that the killer may easily gain possession of.

Back to defining and explaining the opening scene for my thriller.
Before introducing the audience to the scene, an establishing shot will be required to give information and details to the audience where the whole scene is taking place first.
This is done simply by placing a camera outside the current location (Being a house) and fixing it in a static position by placing it on a tripod. The camera is then set to zoom in slowly and then editing will be used to insert a fade to black to give the illusion that the camera has now entered the house and then will cross cut to our first scene. (However the use of the fade to black transition will make the quick cross cut appear much smoother)

Establishing shot which shows the outside of the house, zooms in slowly after a few seconds delay...

...Which then cross-cuts to the new scene which is now inside the house.

A fade to black and then a fade from black will be used as a transition effect between the change of scenes.

Now following after the fade from black and the first scene inside the house which focuses on a door within a dark corridoor, this is where we present our main character of the film, who will simply open the door and walk into the home.

To the audience, how the lighting illuminates the corridoor and also the back of the main character, can present that he plays a major role within the film. This is also supported by how there is also a slight shadow that covers the front of him, which masks some of his appearance and can only discover more of the character by resuming to watch.

After the character walks a short distance after entering the house, a quick straight-cut is used and a small scene of a camera being dropped onto the floor with a grayscale filter used.

To the audience, the filter effect of the grayscale filter can imply this may be resorting to a memory or incident of the past, or more specifically, can start to raise questions if this relates to the current characters information. By using a camera, it should give the impression to the audience that the character has been involved with photography linked work. However at the same time, non-digestic sound in the form of a distant and eerie howl is applied as the camera is dropped at the start of the small scene, which then can leave audiences to question that the character may have experienced negative or frighting things during a possible photography carrer as the action of dropping an item can be caused by pure shock or frightened by something severely.

After the quick camera dropping scene, it fades to black and then fades out from black and resuming the current scene back inside the house, where the main character is walking but is now in the frontroom, with the camera facing the character's back.

As the character is walking, once again, after a few steps of walking the scene appears to change. However, rather than a straight-cut into another scene; a small scene of the character overlaps half of the screen where he appears to be sitting down and rocking.

But once again, this contains a greyscale filter, but with an added strobe light effect. This can one again imply to the audience this is a bad experience or memory, with the added effect of the strobe light effect though, it makes it seem as more of a faint memory than a "soild" memory such as the camera dropping scene where the screen does not flash within that scene.