How do directors establish the openings of thrillers?

The graph shows just what directors like to establish in the beginning of thriller films. In a conventional thriller there are a few things that must be established. The themes must be established early as they can allow you to understand the film and get to understand what may happen in the film. Character and tone are very important because they set the audience to the right frame of mind and allow what the should feel or expect from the film and what characters are like and how they may form an attachment to them. However the plot is not important in the opening of thriller films and these traits can be shown in films such as Essex Boys and Alice Creed.

Essex Boys

Figure 1

Essex Boys creates a sense of bleakness and entrapment in the opening of the film and this is to establish certain key ideas. The location is established very well in Essex Boys and in turn that establishes the character to show how bleak and cold their lives are and how they are too. In figure 1 there is a vanishing point off centre to create a sense of uneasiness and the vanishing point being in a tunnel shows that the location makes you feel as if you are going into the unknown and it allows the location to show you how the lives of the characters is from the start. How they are always travelling down dark paths never knowing what's at the end of the tunnel.The use of a dimly lit tunnel connotes the idea that Billy, the young man, is not very weary about what is to later come as the tunnel doesn't show any signs of hope because the lighting is green and green connotes envy or greed. The location shows how bleak the lives of the two characters Billy and Jason are as the only thing to drive to is a dark tunnel, which implies that they live very bleak lives with very little attachment to anything such as people because they are cold and raw men.

Figure 2

In figure 2 the bleak locations connotes the ideas that this is Jason's mind. Jason who is a hard hitting British gangster takes a man to this location and beats him up. Jason does this without flinching or caring at all which could show that this location could be a representation of Jason's mind and how he is so bleak that he has nothing left so just turns to being cold and angry. The harsh blue tinted lighting also gives it an effect of being cold and establishes how the need for locations such as this shows just how Essex boys is trying to portray the ideas that character and location can go hand in hand. 

Essex Boys in a perfect example of how the opening of a thriller will establish some things very much in detail and not cover other aspects at all. The plot and the themes are not established very much as they are not as important in the beginning of this film because the director wanted to show just how connotations of bleakness and moral ambiguity can establish the opening of a thriller film. 

Alice Creed 

In contrast Alice Creed seeks to establish themes and tone in the opening of the film. The constant feeling of entrapment and a very menacing tone continuously remind you of the themes of the film and how the mood is going to be throughout it. The rule of thirds is also used very well to establish the themes as the two men are very much in the rule of thirds at all times and this shows that they know what they are doing and how kidnapping and crime comes very easily to them almost like it comes second nature. This is shown in 

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

figure 3 as the two men and getting the room ready for the kidnapping and are very calm and very much in control of the situation. The use of close ups allows you to feel trapped and very much involved in the crimes that they are about to do. In figure 4 this is in a sequence of extreme close ups of them getting the room ready and how it shows you the detail that they put in but it also again establishes the theme of entrapment but also establishes the tone as being eerily calm and this is reinforced by the men never speaking to each other so the character is never shows of these two men but that is very much to set the tone/ mood of the film very quickly. In figure 5 it is another extreme close up but not of them being precise and in detail of them being very orderly and in routine with their profession. This establishes the themes very well as it shows the theme of violence and makes the audience think about the men as nothing has been given away about them or about why they are doing what they are so the sense of an enigma here really allows the viewer to see how the film is going to be violent and ruthless while always feeling trapped and always having a edgy, eerie and cruel tone and mood to it.