Brick (Johnson 2005 us)

I conceder brick to be a conventional thriller movie due to the techniques it uses in the opening sequence.
the opening scenes I watched contained only close-up and extreme close up I believe this was done particularly more to the start of this film and other thriller films to get the audience asking numbers of questions from the of, also by doing this it opens up our minds to explore the possibility of why this could be happening as a result its leaving us anxious and firstly for more to get closer on their thoughts and ideas. For example at the start of the film the first thing we saw was a close-up of a male person shoes den faded strait to his eyes which was looking very anxious sweaty and scared which is already making the audience think, what he looking at why his he scared what has he done.

Another convention with opening sequences this thriller used using close was the way the director mad us see only exactly what he wanted which was a verity of close ups showing us key information and only giving us hints and clues but not making sense complete sense together at this moment in time, but later on in the film would make complete sense e.g. showing of the brown shoes showing us the dead girls costume blue bangles on her arm ect. Then after as it hasn’t been following a chronological storyline its able to go back in time and then link up the key close-ups of the blue bangles of the girl and the brown shoes of the boy strait away making us as the audience recognise what’s going on then begin to try peace things together.

Also in Brick they create a barrier between the main character and the audience. In the short clips we see of him, the director puts him in the view point of the camera were we can never actually get to see the hole of his body or face leaving him always party hidden or cut off in the frame, this creates tension in the opening sequence almost making him to be a entrusted character leaving a lot of question still for interpretation which is also a convention of a thriller.

The mise en scene of this thriller in the first scene was dark damp gritty and wet making us as an audience feel uncomfortable and unsettled, because of the location which is dark normally associated with aloneness and the unknown which is child hood fear that never full seems to go, and also a dirty environment witch is associated with pain and suffering. The next scene is a complete contrast to the first its bright colourful and full of people in a social environment of school witch the director uses to confused the audience as their no longer in the dark, this contrast is broke by the title screen shot which is a simple black background white text read “brick” giving us no real cues to what the films going to be about almost giving us a chill in the eeriness in its simplicity and lack of colour