The Usual Suspects Opening Sequence Analysis

The Usual Suspects

The film first starts off with a tracking shot on a dark river with dark orchestral music which connotes a mysterious emotion, which is a generic feature of a Thriller type film. The overwhelming amount of darkness and obvious absence of light further emphasises the mysterious element of the film.

The first person we see in the film is sitting down on the floor and after lighting his cigarette he then lights what appears to be a line of oil or petrol. The fact that this is done in near darkness and that the man appears to try to kill himself by burning his surroundings with him still present beggars the question why the man is doing. Because the audience is unaware of the man’s reason for his action the element of mysterious is brought up, thus the sequence displays a generic feature of a Thriller genre.

The main source of mystery in the sequence is the identity of the gunman. In the sequence we are only shown shots (such as a close up of his feet) of the man’s body apart from his face. As the gunman makes his way to the other man we see matched cuts of him all which refuse to show his face. For most of the sequence we see the gunman in high low angle shots which portrays his power and dominant status in the sequence. The restriction of the man’s identity creates further suspicion and suspense as well as secrecy which are common features of the Thriller genre. Also the fact that the man is violent (shown by how he urinates on a corpse and shoots the other man) draws in the audience’s attention as this is a typical feature of the Thriller genre.


















A few of members of the cast:
Gabriel Byrne as Dean Keaton
Kevin Spacey as Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint/Keyser Soze
Chazz Palminteri as U.S. Customs Special Agent Dave Kujan
Stephen Baldwin as Michael McManus

Trailer - http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2717188377/

Inspiration

We got the idea for doing a thriller based opening sequence after watching the opening sequence for a thirller movie called 'The Usual Suspects'. We decided that a thriller genre would be best for us because the city we live in (Manchester), would give us the best tools for implementing the traditional conventions of a thriller genre into our own thriller aspiring opening sequence. Conventions are the features that are usually present in genres. For example, a romcom genre would have lighting ( usually from the Sun), bright colours and a town based location (like Times Square in New York). For our opening sequence we are going to use the conventions of a thriller such as: low key lighting, use of shadows, a mysterious individual and violence.

This alley way is typical of a location that might be used in a Thriller film. This is shown by the dominance of the shadows, somewhat low lit lighting and poor/'shady' conditions in the image.

Loose Ends - Story Board

Today, we finished the loose ends of what we had done on Tuesday.

For example, we finished the last few shots of our story board and added some more detail.

We also decided on the location for our filming.

Production Treatment

Programme: 'The Job'

Duration: 2 minutes

Audience: The opening sequence will not contain any elements of physical violence. The main target audience will be teenagers to young adults (15-30 yrs). Those who enjoyed thrillers such as 'The Usual Suspects', the 'Bourne' Series and 'Double Jeopardy' should be able to enjoy 'The Package'.

Resume: A girl appears weak, battered, bloodied and is weakily staggering. She's dazed and confused about where she is. A few metres away from her, a man is observing her, waiting for her to faint. The girl finally collapses because of her injuries and the observant man approaches her. The man makes a call on his phone and tells the person on the other end of it that the girl has collapsed. A low angle shot of another man (the other person on the other end of the phone) appears and we hear him telling the other man to do the job 'properly'.

Suggested Elements:
- Use of shadows and low lit locations to implement the generic conventions of a thriller genre
- Use of short shots to emphasise tension
- Use of thriller genre props e.g. black suits, black gloves.
- Use of thriller genre characters e.g. a mysterious male with a deep voice

Filming Locations: To be announced/confirmed.

Recording Days: To be announced.

Constantine

Main Task Early Development

Today we started planning the story for our main task. There were a few small disagreements about the storyline but these disagreements were quickly sorted out. Another difficulty we had was developing the storyline, we were sure about the main narrative of the story but we weren't sure about the other small narrative parts of the story. After 10 minutes of discussion, we came up with the other narratives for the story. On the storyboard we added 5 possible shots for the main task. We have yet to come up with a name for the project.

We also uploaded the preliminary task video to the blog (which is in a seperate post).

Lost and Found (Video)

Here's the video upload for our preliminary task (Lost and Found):

Foundation Portfolio Evaluation

On Friday we did our 'Foundation Portfolio Evaluation':


On the first day of filming the preliminary task we learnt how to operate the camera. The number of things we learnt when it came to operating the camera where: how to insert the mini DV into the camera (as well as ejecting it), how to attach it to the tripod and how to use the camera controls (like fast forward and rewind). During the filming we became aware of the fact that the camera was prone to static so we had to be careful about how we filmed scenes. Another thing we learnt was that when it came to filming, we had to make sure that the camera microphone didn’t pick up any sounds which weren’t relevant to our scene(s).

The editing software we used was 'Final Cut Pro'. With Final Cut Pro we learnt how to upload the recorded footage from the camera to the editing software. We also learnt how to do a number of things (such as trimming excess scene footage, marking in and out, adding transitions and as well as adding [sub]titles) on the uploaded footage.
We learnt that when it came to using the camera we had to make sure that the camera microphone didn’t pick up any sounds which weren’t relevant to our scene(s).

For the filming aspect of our project we experienced a few problems. One of the problems we faced was the camera picking up extra sounds. When we first started filming we weren’t aware that the camera was picking up static sound or the extraction fan in the background. We only realised this when we went through our footage. Because of this we had to re-take some of the scenes. Another filming problem we faced was interruptions. During our filming we had a number of interruptions from passer-bys walking in front of the camera which means that there were a number of times when we had to re-do certain scenes.

In terms of editing we really didn’t face any difficult problems. The only problem we faced was altering the sound. In some of the scenes we were editing, there was some unwanted background dialogue. After getting some help on how to use Final Cut Pro’s audio properties, we were able to get rid of the background dialogue by muting it, making sure it wasn’t noticeable.


For the shot reverse shot combination we had two people facing each other and we then had the camera (on a tripod) positioned between them. Using this technique allowed the cameraman to easily rotate the camera’s direction between the person on the right to the other person on the left, so we were able to do this when it came to the dialogue of the shot reverse shot (by rotating the camera’s direction to the person who was talking and so forth). We then edited out the parts when the camera was rotating to make it look like a more a shot reverse shot.


One of the matched cuts we used was when we had a shot in which one of our actors (Gabriel) opened a door and then the next shot we had was of him coming out of the door on the other side.


When we were doing the shot reverse shot scene, we also implemented the 180 degree rule. This was done by having two actors facing each other and we then had the camera (on a tripod) positioned between them (look at diagram A for example). Using this technique allowed the cameraman to easily rotate the camera’s direction between the person on the right and the other person on the left therefore letting us implement the 180 degree rule.

Diagram A

Lost and Found (main preliminary editing)

We began to edit our preliminary task on friday 29th of january, by this date we had completed the preliminary filming. Eugene had used Final Cut Pro so with his experience we were able to do the editing without any major issues. Capturing the clip onto the final cut pro software was a challenge as the footage had different time codes so the software couldn't pick up the connection clearly.
After successfully capturing the clip the scenes were merged together chronologically to follow the film scenario. We had to do a lot of organising/categorising because as a group we took a lot of filler shots just for back-up safety. We also managed to combine the clips as accordingly after which we then began doing proper editing. One of the editing tools we used was the 'Blade' tool to split up scenes and make them look like matched cuts e.g. when Gabriel opens the door.
The name of our preliminary sequence is Lost and Found.

Preliminary Start

On the 22/01/10 we began to film our preliminary. For the first half of the lesson we were introduced to the filming equipment and how to use it. Afterwards, we then started to plan the storyline for the preliminary. In the second lesson we started to shoot the sequence but we weren't able to get it finished, we just needed to do the shot reverse shot scene.

The story of the prelimnary task was a simple one:

1. Gabriel's NI card falls out of his pocket but is unaware of it.
2. Constantine sees that Gabriel has dropped his National Insurance (NI) card but looks up to see that he's already left.
3. Gabriel is still unaware that he's dropped his NI card.
4.When Gabriel is at the bottom of the stairs he realises that he's lost his NI card.
5. Gabriel retraces his steps and finds Constantine with his NI card.
6. Gabriel thanks Constantine for finding his NI card.
7. The end.

Final Editing...And its Issues

Today we finished editing our video shoots , we muted the background sounds that weren't relevant to the scenario. For example the camera picked up sounds of the camera man giving the cue for the actor to act in the scene, which interrupted the continuity of the edit and sound.This was an issue that was easily sorted. We realised that we could use more close up shots as it was relevant to the element within the scene, for example in the scene where Gabriel dropped the card; we could have used a more close- up shot to catch the detail of the falling object, as a long shot tends to be boring in a scenario that requires more detail of the props used in it.

This list below consist of the type of shots that were used in our preliminary test:

1. Long shot
2. Extreme close-up
3. Shot -reverse -shot
4. High angle shot
5. Low angle shot
6. Two shot
7. Close- up shot
8. Point of view
9. Tracking shot
10. Eyeline match
    
    

Re-Shoot

On 26/01/10 we had to re-shoot the prelimenary task again because of audio problems. When we first did the filming, we were not aware that the camera was also picking up non-relevant background sounds. Due to this issue we decided to re-shoot some scenes where the sound problem was present. The scene we re-shot was the stair scene. We couldn't finish the rest of the filming on that day so we decided to finish it on friday.