Student Opening Analysis by Raj

To begin with, The students opening scene for a thriller genre has used appropriate costume to fit into the thriller genre. The characters costume is black which connotes that she is a antagonist as the colour black means danger and evil. She has also worn a scarf which is partly yellow suggesting that she is intellect. We can hear sounds like droplets of blood dripping or a piano key playing to build tension as it is played very slowly. By the looks of her costume it looks tight to show the audience she is fit. This can be linked to another thriller movie called divergent as the costume for Tris is tight to show that she is in shape and muscular.

Other elements of mise-en-scene used are make-up and props. The make-up is not appropriate for the opening scene for the extract as usually antagonists wouldn’t wear light coloured make-up they would normally wear darker make-up and they would also look quite older. The props that have been used are a glass full of water with some pills with red lipstick. This could mean, in this case that the girl is a psycho as she is taking medicine or drugs. The red lipstick means that there is danger.

There were numerous types of camera shots used in this extract. First there was the close-up which showed her facial expression which was her just doing her make-up and she had a smirk on her face which could mean she is up to no good. This creates tension because the audience doesn’t know what she did. Then the POV shot was used to show the objects of what she was doing with them. This creates tension because no one knows how much of those drugs or medicines she has taken due to her craziness. At the start of the opening scene there was panning when the camera moved left to right towards the flats then there was a dolly zoom to get a closer look at what is happening to build tension of what could be in the flat. Another shot used was the mid- shot to show some torso and background. The girl was standing there beside a red wall. The wall colour could connote that there was going to be even more danger and a lot of blood. Then there was tracking shot which was following Rhianna's shoes up until  the door. This created tension because the audience doesn’t know what’s behind the door.