Comparing two thriller movie opening sequences By Mohit

 Comparing two thriller movie opening sequences

In this essay I will be comparing the two movies 'Drive' and 'Panic Room'. Firstly, drive is a movie starring Ryan Gosling, the sequence opens with upbeat techno music and shows an extremely slow pan of buildings lit up at night in a busy city. During this, the main actor; Ryan Gosling's is shown in pink italics and the scene cuts to him sitting in a car, with a low angle shot and this shot makes the main character look superior, and after a brief second the movie's title is shown in the same pink italics. When the shot opens with Ryan Gosling sitting in the car, one will instinctively know that the film is about cars and driving, which relates to the name of the film. After this the music stays the same however the camera angle changes to an over the shoulder shot of the main character driving his car through the night life, busy city and more actor credits are shown during this. Throughout the opening, there is low key lighting used to create a dark and intense atmosphere. Then from the close up on the main character's face, the camera angle changes to a high angle birds eye-view, showing the car from above on the highway driving around in the city, during this the name of the composer who created the piece of music is also shown in pink italics as well as the production designer and editor. The next shot shown is of the car pulling-up in a car park, and this is shot at a medium shot at level of the car. Then the main character Ryan Gosling is shown out of his car and walking through a hallway with the camera angle as a dolly tracking shot, which is over his left shoulder. This type of camera angle is very interesting as it is a mix of three different angles composed as one, which are; a dolly shot, tracking shot and on over the shoulder. Then the rest of the opening scene is of the nightlife of the city that Ryan Gosling is in.

For the next movie, the opening sequence opens with the production company; Columbia Pictures, then there's a fade out to a high shot of buildings and the production company name written among this. The credits of the cast and crew are shown by a panshot alongside buildings. Each credit is shown on a different building or location in the same city. Then the title credit is shown in a panshot sliding left to right. An interesting shot is a high angle shot looking down at a building which features the name of the person who casted the actors. Another interesting is of another credit, which is of the film editors, and the camera looks like it is on a crane as it is on a low angle slowly rising up. The sound throughout the whole sequence is non-diegetic and is an intense orchestral piece of music and this keeps the audience alerted about the fact that this is a thriller movie, the last shot of the credit is of the directors name, which features a whole entire view of the city, and during this the non-diegetic sound slowly fades out, as a female voice can be heard speaking, however the image is still of the directors name.

To conclude both movie sequence openings share both similarities and differences. as they both are shot in a busy city with skyscrapers shown, in the credits are amongst these buildings. however, they both have differences as 'Drive' is shot during the night and 'Panic Room' is shot during the day, and Drive also features characters in its opening sequence whereas, Panic Room is just of buildings and credits. I feel these credits suit both the movies.