Analysis of 9 shots from Art Of The Title Sequence-- Se7en

The screen shot above is the for the opening of the film 'Se7en'. The movie's story follows a retiring detective (Morgan Freeman) and his replacement (Brad Pitt), using a joint attempt to investigate a series of ritualistic murders inspired by the seven deadly sins.

It is apparent from the moment the opening titles begin that the film will be ominous and thought provoking. You can see this via various things such as the small glimpses of objects with no meaning of yet, like the book which we see someone flicking pages, the Dollar Bill and negatives. The money that is shown in the opening, as seen in the ninth shot in the title sequence makes it clear that the film will have religious connotations as the word 'GOD' is highlight, being cut out by a character you are yet to completely see. The fact you do not immediately see the character carrying out these actions also helps the ominous effect clearly being given over to the audience.

There are many black shots in the opening scene, with titles in white, UPPERCASE. I feel that this is a very effective way of both promoting the theme of being thought provoking and displaying the credits without taking any attention away from the events being shown. The effects used on the titles in the opening had a similar appearance to the 'frigid' effect on Live Type which is where we will be creating titles for our Thriller opening and since seeing 'Se7en' i feel that it could be an effect we use in our own opening.
The majority of shots throughout the opening are close ups of miscellaneous objects around a room, the close up shots work very well as they give you a limited places to look and so emphasis's the object that may otherwise be overlooked such as a notebook.

The lighting in the scene is generally quite dull creating a dingy effect and eerie atmosphere that darkness can often create. It leads the audience to think about why they are being shown this room and that the room holds i high importance that is yet to be found out. The music and sounds in the title sequence also play a large role in getting the wished feeling of the audience across; it starts with small generally irrelevant noise like pages turning and creaking which is heard mainly throughout the title sequence, then eventually moves onto a beat being created which speeds up slowly right until the end where another reference to religion is made when it says 'you get me closer to God'.

This title sequence interested me particularly by the way the titles are laid out and the fonts, effects used for it. I also really liked the overlaying effect of things like unreadable writing and flashes of other objects over the main action being showed in the opening. I think that the overlay effect gives what may otherwise seem as a non interesting scene much more impact. What i most liked was the way the soundtrack, titles and editing produce the opening as without just one of those features it would not be such an effective scene.