Memento's opening sequence is both clever and effective. The first screen contains a black background with a blue title saying 'Memento'. The title is blue which is typical of the genre 'thriller'. This subtle factor plays an important part of distinguishing the genre. Certain colours are associated with different genres, for example blue - thriller.
This title sequence shows all necessary titles such as the producer/assistant producer, production roles, film title and the director. The actual scene itself presents the end of the film. This emphasizes one of the main themes (typical factors) of a thriller, Suspense. The audience is left wondering how it ended up happening, what the situation is and who the characters are. Immediately this forfils the purpose of a title sequence by grabbing the audience's attention and sparking initial interest.
I grabbed these specific screenshots above because they sparked my interest. The first one is displaying the film title against a black background. As previously mentioned, the colour blue is associated with thriller. As the font and background are both dark colours, this suggests that it is an eery, (dark) film. The word Memento is surrounded by a 'sea' of black.
The second screen is an explicit photograph of a dead person. This causes immediate curiosity and interest as the audience has no idea who it could be or why it has happened. Also, it is a close-up shot meaning that the audience are restricted as to what they can see. This again creates suspense and curiosity. This is a prime example of an extremely effective opening sequence as It forfills the purpose and is appropriate to the genre.
I chose the rest of the images due to similar reasons. Each of them sparked my interest by not giving much away. The content I could view was distressing and explicit (would expect to see in a thriller movie). I was unable to see the surroundings properly as the majority of the shots were close-ups/extreme close-ups.
The atmosphere is very dark and dull during the title sequence. Again, this sets the overall theme of the film. As the end of the film is shown at the beginning, the audience is aware that there is going to be unpleasantness and that the issue is possibly resolved. The suspense is what keeps the audience watching through-out. There are many close up shots meaning that the audience is not recieving a lot of information. Again, this sparks interest and creates suspense.
Good work Tyler. Detailed analysis in places, please keep this up. I feel that you could be more specific about all of the shots you have chosen, not just the first two, and that you could split these photos up and put them next to the relevant point you are making as well as at the start of your post.
ReplyDeleteWell done.
MCU.