Se7en opening credits deconstruction

Deconstruction of Se7en opening credits

Genre: Psychological horror

 

Typography: 

The typography used in the opening credits to display the title of the film and people involved in the making is in plain white child-like text, flashing up in time with the mechanical music and often is edited to look static to make it seem disorientated, representing the killers mind. This fits in with the narrative of psychological horrors where it divulges in the killer's mind rather than the victims.

Mise-en-scene [1]: 

in this short opening sequence there is numerous pictures shown of body parts, the pictures look as if they are old and have been taken from a newspaper (eg. there is a picture of a person with a screw in their skull. This highlights an obsession for operation's from the killer's POV and is sinister as it reflects on the killer's intentions.

Mise-en-scene [2]:

There is many relgious connotations throughout the opening sequence, as we see the killer reading the bible and highlighting parts of it. Suggesting the killers inspirations and motivations for his killings. This links in with the theme that many psychological horrors have religion as a reasoning for the antagonists murders. This also links in with the title of 'Se7en' that relates to the seven deadly sins.

Editing:

In the editing process of the opening credits, they have overlapped some of the clips to make images look faded over the top. From an audience perspective the clip looks blurry and out of focus, creating a disorientated look to it. As well as this transitions from clip to clip is smooth through the use of textures overlapped on top make it seem fast paced and a lot on screen at once. The use of the red texture (shown in the right screenshot) symbolizes blood, and danger.

Music:

The non-diegetic music in the background sounds like static or when there is no signal on a radio, and is mechanical. The use of this music creates an emotions of helplessness as it sounds like 'no signal on a radio' suggesting no help will come to the victims aid.

Context:

Close up of the killer using a sharp edge to cut of the skin from the top of his fingernails showing he is cutting of his fingerprints, this suggests themes of crime as the killer doesn't want to be identified through his fingerprints when he commits a crime. This foreshadows later events in the movie.