Three Theatrical Thriller Thopenings

    With a genre set in place we embark on the journey of making the movie Evil Scott Pilgrim vs. the World where everyone crashes and burns and Ramona Flowers doesn't exist. For now, research on thriller openings start.

Gattaca

The film begins with two quotes that are meant to highlight the themes of the movie. However, these quotes purposefully contradict each other, which shows what will eventually be the main conflict between our protagonist, which we are soon introduced to, and his world. The atmosphere of the film opening is sullen, utilizing blue hues before showing the drab, futuristic and dystopian setting. It also shows the protagonist gear up for something that is only explained later in the movie. 

What I want to take from this opening is introducing the character already as someone they want to be, instead of the character slowly becoming who they want to be. The characters are meant to develop backwards, first hindered by their delusions that they are, in their case, a big shot garage band (oxymoron), when in reality they're just high school dropouts with no talent or desire to improve. 

The Talented Mr. Ripley

This isn't just Jude Law movies we're getting there.

What I really found interesting about this film opening was how the producers were able to portray the many “talents” our protagonist has due to him having to learn multiple skills to properly take people’s identities. This is indicated well during the scene where Mrs. Greenleaf notices the protagonist’s jacket as “Class of ‘56,” and we later find that the jacket is borrowed, and that he filled in for, what is presumably, the real Mr. Ripley.  

What I want to take from this opening is adding detail to every single frame to show how the main characters of my film opening, specifically the band, have absolutely no idea what they’re doing or anything about music and will fail. I want to do this by showing how they organize themselves on the stage, who messes up first, their counting, etc.

The Substance

This film begins with two separate scenes both filmed as overhead shots. The first is of a raw egg being injected with a substance (wow like the title!) and the yolk multiplying itself. Then it cuts to the construction of a Hollywood Walk of Fame Star with the protagonist’s name, Elizabeth Sparkle, on it. We see it go from a clean tile with people taking photos and admiring it, to the star being ignored and unmaintained. People who see the star slowly stop talking about the person whose name is on it as well, which we hear from pieces of dialogue between each cut.

Though simple, the symbolism used to quickly tell the story of Elizabeth Sparkle’s career is very creative and effective. I wanted to take this idea of symbolism and include it to foreshadow what would be the events after the film opening. Specifically through the band's ineptitude, crowd's reaction, and the music. After the band continues to mess up, only one member at first then the rest, and the crowd bashing them in return. For the music, it would be a ringing note on an electric guitar with distortion, so that the sound would swell and continuously become more unpleasant to hear.