Before we made our thriller opening we wanted to look at different openings of real thriller films to get a better understanding of what they include. Here I am going to analyse 'Drive' a 2011 crime thriller, directed by Nicolas Refn.
The film starts with an ariel shot that pans over Los Angeles at night which shows all of the skyscrapers lit up. This tells the audience that the film is set in America in a big city. The credits are in a fluorescent pink/purple colour and are in a stylish written type font. As soon as the film starts music is playing as non-diegetic sound. The track is called Nightcall by Kavinsky and was actually released in 2010 however it has an eighties electric sound to it and is quite retro. The next shot shown is a low angle of Ryan Gosling's character sitting still in his car, this is where the name of the film first appears. It then changes to an over the shoulder shot of Ryan actually driving, here the audience can see that he is wearing a jacket with a high collar, driving gloves and has a toothpick sticking out of his mouth, he is also driving with one hand and looking out the window. I think that the music goes very well with the opening because it contrasts with the main character who is very calm and cool just like the song is. The following shot is not the characters point of view however it is just off view and the audience can see his reflection in the car's interior mirror. I think this was a good shot to use as its a very unusual yet professional way of looking at the characters expressions. Further on in the film a birds eye view is used, this is to show where the character is or where they are heading. There are continuous shots from the side of the character driving in the car still. Although this film is called drive and will obviously involve cars and car chases, in the opening scene the camera never leaves the inside of the car and is always with Ryan's character. I think that this was a good technique to use because stereotypical car films always film the outside of the cars to show off their speed and ability whereas here we are feeling what the driver goes through and perhaps are automatically sided with him. We then see the character outside of the car for the first time and he walks past a woman. The audience don't know that she has any resemblance yet however the shot does focus on her twice which might be a clue to the audience that she may be a key character in the film. The character then goes in to what looks like his new apartment and stands there in the dark, here you can see him with the street lighting on his face and behind him is his perfectly shaped shadow. This shot is used well because it shows he's not really bothered about most things and the shadow effect on the wall is a good technique to show that maybe he has a darker side to him. He then walks back out straight away and another birds eye view is used to show the big city again. The final shot that is shown is the same off view that was used when we saw him in the car earlier, it shows that he is driving again and we can see his reflection in the mirror. This gives the audience a sense of his personality, that he doesn't really care about things and would rather be out in his car as shown by the repeated shots of the city roads and of him driving.
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