Hostage

Thriller Opening Analysis Sheet

Film Title: Hostage
Director: Florent Siri
Title Designer:

Technique
Effect (Analysis)
Camera – distance, angle, movement…
Long shots throughout the opening introducing location and setting.
Close ups on particular buildings.
Angle of cameras continuously canting, lots of panning around the whole screen.

Effect/Analysis ^
Long shots to identify the sort of time in which it has been set. Buildings, city-like, are creating a sense of business and enclosure. Close ups of buildings could be significant as they may become more important later on in the film. The continuous canting of the camera angle creating loss of control of the film and how it is going to be out across.

Editing – speed, style…
Tracking, fading out of buildings and names of producers. Zooming out from one shot to another linking with the sound. One shot leading onto another shot ranges as some quikly cut and others fade into another. Creating the pace to adjust to the speed of the sound.

Effect/Analysis ^
The tracking and fading out of buildings creates a sense of pace and movement. It’s quite fast so it sort of influences the audience into thinking that it could be an action packed sort of film.

Sound – effects, musical score…
Creepy non-diegetic sound, loud, and raised as the editing becomes faster the sound becomes louder.

Effect/Analysis ^
Creating anticipation to keep on watching. Although throughout the opening it is the same sort of thing. But along with the sound it makes it more watch able.

Mise-en-scene – props, costume, setting, lighting, colour…
Figures in dull grey colours. Guns, dark lighting, shadowing of buildings against others. Very compact as there are alot of objects being used in each shot.

Effect/Analysis ^
Even though the mise en scene isn’t very colourful or brings a lot of attention to the audience, its makes them think the opposite to why it is dull, red skies, shadows against buildings. This then makes them think that something bad is lurking around.
Shadowing of the buildings create in a sense hidden messages.

Special Effects – CGI, animation…
Animation of soldier figures and guns. Buildings. Not much animation in this extract.

Effect/Analysis ^
The effect of using soldier figures automatically creates a sense of death, as guns are shown and the figures are dark grey. It also signifies war and no peace.

Titles – font, colour, placement, over black / over clip…
Bold white titles against red/black backgrounds,

Effect/Analysis ^
The colours of the opening are based on red black and white, dull colours signifying death and torture. White titles are only used for names of producers etc, however title of the film ‘hostage’ is bold red, indicating to the audience that this is the title of the film.