Psychological thriller

Black swan opening

A psychological thriller is a story which emphasises the abnormal mental state of its characters often focusing on mental illnesses and creating fear within the film based on the mental state.

One psychological thriller is Black Swan which is based on a female ballerina that struggles to keep her sanity when given the lead role in the "Swan Lake" dance. In the film we see her as a very innocent young woman, but throughout, we see how her dark side shows when the pressure increases.

The opening to the thriller is shown below in the video.

This opening is both simple but effective as it just shows one scene on a black crayon being pressed on paper drawing something that's unclear. By using the colour black it instantly sows that there is some darkness within the film because the colour is often associated with death or something evil, so by using it in the opening sequence it makes it clear to the audience that the film is a thriller. The use of the crayon as oppose to a pencil brings a harshness when on the paper and a much darker and messy effect because of the uneven application it has. The crayon allows for the drawing to look a lot more sinister especially as the sequence continues and the lines get more intense it starts to appear as something that maybe someone who is mentally unstable is creating it. This is because the pressure increases with the music so maybe they are suggesting that the music being played has a connection with the person drawing. This then gives the thriller the psychological feeling with the very quick change of emotion that the music can have.
The music used in the opening is "The Swan Lake" by Tchaikovsky, which is has a key relationship to the storyline of the film because Nina is dancing the swan lake show. So by using the music it instantly foreshadows the ending of the film, or at least the main theme of the thriller. The music starts of very calm and correlates with the actions of the drawing, but as the beginning continues, the music gets more and more impactful and concentrated because the classical sounds progress into sharp noises that are very commonly used within thrillers. This is technique in a psychological thriller is very powerful because as they are about mental conditions, its something you cannot notice or see at first but as time goes by you become to understand that there is something deeper, which is what the music does, because initially the opening seems normal, but as the music increases in sound and pitch, it progresses the whole opening to something different to how it started. Just like how psychological thrillers present there stories, they use time to reveal the real story.
Within the thriller it is just using one shot, this is an extreme close up with the crayon, paper and a hand being shown. The use of these three simple features allows this thriller to maintain all of its focus on the music and black lines. This is good because we aren't distracted by other props or characters that could potentially impact the intensity if the shot was perhaps a wide shot or a long shot.
The titles uses throughout the thriller opening are quite small compared to other thrillers, but they are still very noticeable and clear. They are clear because the white background of the paper allows for anything to be seen clearly and as the writing is black is stands out a lot more. The theme of black and white is also quite different to other openings because usually there would be colour to draw in the audience but because the sole focus is placed on the music and drawing, it allows for the audience to actually have all their focus on it, because if there was a lot of action in the scene then they would be much less likely to see the message of the opening.
Overall this psychological thriller is very successful when creating suspense and an intense atmosphere, and it clearly shows that the thriller is a psychological sub genre, which is one of the most important parts of an opening.