Opening Titles - The Usual Suspects.

In a group of four, we watched the movie opening titles to a thriller film called The Unusual Suspects and we did our own analysis of it. We have looked at things such as how are the opening titles incorporated into the thriller opening and what genre elements are there. We also made notes on the information about the plot and characters that the movie opening gives away.


The movie opening titles of the film The Unsual Suspects was quite simple. There is not a lot of light and the whole introduction is kept at low light level, almost pitch black. There are different shades of light, such as blue and white and they are very repetetive. This might be the reflected light of perhaps a town or some kind of urban area alongside the water, which we thought it might have been a river. It all sets quite a slow and quite dark mood into the movie. The fonts used with the titles is also very simple. There is no special curves or bubble writing or linked fonts. It is just a simple font, in capital letters, telling the viewer the titles, main actors, the director and producers etc. The camera shot that is being used for the opening titles to create the moving effect of the river seems only as if the sequence of three or five different shades of light might have been photographed or filmed and just played on repeat, over and over again.

The main Genre elements that we have found in the film are: the music the directors have used, which is a classical piece of music, kept at very slow tempo to add dramatism to the opening. Also, the dark images of water and the simple fonts keep the viewer interested as they are wanting to find out what will happen next. It may also make the viewer wonder what would be the meaning of the water sequence set on loop mode and just played all over again, why the classical music playing so slow and everything is dark with a low level of light available. The lack of light in the opening titles also sets the mood of the thriller. We can tell by the darkness and simplicity of it, that the mood would be quite dark and mysterious and the music is only creating suspense for positive purposes for the audience as this is what thriller movies are about.
There is not much to say about the characters or the plot in this particular film my group and I have looked at, as there is no characters or plot being shown. It just leaves the audience to wonder and make their own assumptions of what the plot might be or what may happen throughout the movie.

The director might have used that approach however to interest the viewer and make them think and make their own assumptions of the action in the film, already, right from the start on purpose. Even though the thriller opening does seem as if it is very simple and it may seem that there is not much too it, there might have been a lot of brainstrorming and thinking-through the idea of the movie opening, to surprise the viewers, make them think and get them interested to find out what is going to happen in the film.