Thriller analysis of different sub genre

This opening sequence is in a different sub genre compared to the two that i have already analyzed, this movie is more of a social-realism/ crime sub genre of thriller and it is titled London to Brighton.

Conventions and analysis of opening sequence and thriller + enigma's.

We start of with an ident of vertigo films over black followed by the fundee's  'UK film Council' and 'The National Lottery', the next section is also about the above with a difference of the presence of a presents which begins the focus and attention on the film, following this is a "Steel Mill Pictures & Wellington films Production. The typography is simple and readable with basic font, iconography likewise, in a way this builds tension, the vagueness creates a feeling of suspense and mystery as to what is about to happen, which further exploited by no use of score, this is making the audience settle down and turn their minds towards the film. Of course during those titles only important information and main credits are displayed, unlike some older movies that have credits appearing at the start. We see a tableau: "London 3:07 am" which begins laying down narrative, creating story and clarifying location plus time, suspense is low, already at this some of the audience may begin to wonder why its set so early because 3:07 is not a usual time for things to be happening.


Right at the beginning of the scene we can established that something bad has just happened and that the girls are at risk of someone or something, we can see that the young protagonist girl is in pain and scared. We also begin to see the two girls relationship, the older is looking after and providing for the younger, which is demonstrated by the older woman getting the food and the money for the train. Very early on the audience will be asking questions like why is there a young girl with an old woman? Why is she wearing makeup? Why does the older one have a bruise? why are they both so dirty? What are they doing so early in the morning? These are enigmas which are creating mystery and a drive to want to find out whats happening felt by the audience. The narrative seems to be just dropped in the middle of the story with out a propper introduction and scene setting, this is used in thriller plots sometimes so that the audience find out pieces of the puzzle bit by bit later on and fit them all together at the end, this is done through flashbacks and discovering.


A non linear narrative is present- it begins to abruptly; we slowly learn about the characters and the possible antagonist with references to him like "what about that man Derrick?" or "what will that man do?" We realise the older woman is caring and helpful but also that she sells herself which might be and oxymoron because we would expect her character to be low in terms of moral standards and selfishness, which is a connotation of her character, however she is not. We can pick out numerous details from the diallogue, like the girl is expecting money for something she must have done "what about my money?" the audience judge the characters and because the young girl wants money and is with effectively a prostitute, then certain thoughts may be going through peoples minds. At this point in the narrative, we have the opposite of dramatic irony and narrative withholding because the characters know more than us. Another example of judgement is towards the girl, she is so young and up to no good, people may be thinking where are her parents? She is also frightened of something most likely the man Derrick for reasons which we don't know yet. The camera shots are kinetic and moving all the time which suggests panic and rush, further augmented by the elliptical edits which condense time down time very quickly and also add a feeling of hurry, a lot happens in the 3 minutes those feelings are absorbed in the narrative which then reflects out as tension. Finally we get the film title right at the end of the introduction with some asynchronous screaming in the back ground setting a sort of depressing tone. 


This analysis has also given me good idea's especially in the use of enigma's, me and my partner have decided to layer our opening sequence with enigma's so that the audience will try and figure out what and why some things happen, for example in our opening sequence we will have one of the main characters underground with a candle, this will lead the audience to possibly think why is he there? We will then reveal this enigma by the character recording and studying signs and symbols to figure out his own enigma, which will also lead to another enigma and another and so on, so that the audience will always be tense trying to crack the code of what is actually happening.