Momento research on opening

Momento is a confusing opening that is very powerful in how it intrigues the audience. It uses strong conventions of dark and shadowy lighting, uses very traditional detective sartorial codes and emotive music. Momento uses slow violins that gradually gets louder and creates a tense opening. The melody also starts and stops, creating a jolted and disturbing atmpshere which doesnt correlate with the stopping and starting of the diagetic sound of the man flapping the polaroid. This makes it even more uneasy as there are slightly awkwardly timed acoustics. We are planning on not having that much background music, but we could use this technique of having jolted acoustics, maybe juggling between silance and sound to create tension.  It is also silant during the montage of detective scenes, such as when it cuts to the glasses and the blood. This creates tension and a sense of anticipation which then is emphasised by the rising whooshing sound to imply the mans actions are fast and swift. This rise to the point of tension is the effect we are aiming for when Alice looks back at the dead people, to create a sense of panic and tension, so we could try find a swooshing sound to also emphasise and dramatise Alice's action of turning back looking shocked.

The camera is also a clever use of backwards scenes to create confusion and intrigue. The opening starts with an extreme close-up of a polaroid that cleverly gets lighter instead of darker, implying that the scene is going backwards. This creates and enigma and confusion through a slow scene without having to use loads of cuts. This is a great and simple technique that we could use as we are doing a similar beginning of out opening of shooting the ending as the beginning. We also want to make it ambigious about whether its the beginning or the ending until the very end of the scene. Momento do this effectively as they use slow long scenes and then have the camera speed up at the moment of action, allowing the audience to only see a glimpse of the man on the floor, creating an enigma and forcing intrigue and confusion. We could also use this technique when by using quick editing to build tension or an enigma in the same way.

The long drawn out scenes also makes the opening dramatic and tense, as the audience is then left waiting for something to happen but also given time to really take in the mise-en-scene. However, the flapping of the polaroid breaks it up, distirbing the long scene and building tension as they get more frequent and increase along with the violins. There are then fairly quick cuts between the montage and then a quick or fast paced motion back when the main character shoots the man. These contrasting techniques of pairing the slow scenes and then quick into the shooting, making it more shocking when the 'detective' persona of the main character shoots. We can use this contrastint technique when playing around with our sound and our editing of having longer and short scenes together, to create tension and an uneasy feeling, when Alice is running.

The picture in the polaroid is also shocking and intruging for the audience. It creates an enigma around the character and presentss him as a detective. There are also other clues such as the mac beige coat and the close ups of the objects in the room, impying that he is a detective, but this convention is converted as it then unveils he is the killer at the end, creating confusion. This emphasises the importance of the sartorial codes when trying to represent our characters, so we need to make sure we dress Alice: our main character, in something that implies she is a confusing and slightly mentally unstable character. There is also the conventional dark shadowy lighting used in the opening and the detective implication is also conventional in psychological thrillers. We ourselves won't be using dark lighting, but we will have to make sure the sky is either grey or unconventionally sunny, creating confusion and also establishing and making it believable that it is a school setting. The title is also at the very beginning, ensuring that it doesn't seem like a trailer for a film and the credits such as the director etc is in the middle of the screen, ensuring that they get noticed but also drawing attention to the lightening of the polaroid, giving a very big hint the story has something to do with time. This is a clever technique in drawing attention to certain things on the screen, and we can use this by drawing attention to maybe the idea of social networking sites; an issue that we have to incorporate in order to appeal to our target audience.