Analysing thriller clips

In class we watched different thriller clips and analysed them, we had to say what sun genre it was, how the used camera, sound, mise-en scene and editing. Also we had to keep an eye out for how & when the opening credits come e.g. font, number of titles, when they appear- static or moving. i had to fill in this sheet, when we watched the different clips:

The thriller clip i have chosen to analyse is MEMENTO. Memento is a psychological thriller about a man, suffering from short-term memory loss, using notes and tattoos he is hunting  for the man he thinks killed his wife. 

We watched the title sequence of the film as our clip, here is the title sequence;

I haven't watched the film, but i have lots of friends who do media as well and they have watched it in their class and they said that the film is really good.

so hopefully ill be able to watch it soon to see for myself. 

we know that this is a psychological thriller because there are  two different sequences of scenes, one in black-and-white that are shown in the right order, and another in color with the sequences shown in reverse order. The two sequences come together at the end of the film, producing one story. We see at the beginning that the scene is being played backwards, this tell us that this is not going to be the normal type of film that goes in order and this tips us of that it is something to do with the mind & psychology. the conventions of a typical psychological thriller is when the conflict between the main characters is mental and emotional rather than outside/ physical.  

In the clip we watched there was a use of different angles, there were high angles, low angles. there were close ups of the photo, the glasses, his face, the gun and the bullet. these were all shot as close ups so that you will register them in your head, they were shown because they represent an importance in the film. The most prominent sound that i noticed was the flapping of the photo.. to give the photo importance they have enhanced the sound. the back ground music was slow and thoughtful compared to when the gun and bullet came in the picture, the bullet dropping to the ground from the gun was made very clear with the close up and the sound effect they have added on. 

The editing of the opening clip was slow paced, especially at the beginning, the camera was focused on the photo for a long time. i was really impressed by how they made the scene happen backwards, i think that after watching the whole clip i thought that this was really clever. because at the beginning when we first started watching the clip i was drifting off..  I didn't get it straight away that the clip was being played backwards.

These are the three main characters;



Guy Pearce-                                                Carrie-Anne Moss-

who plays Leonard                                      who plays natalie 



Joe Pantoliano-

who plays Teddy Gammell

The opening credits of this film are as follows;

0:01- films title

0:08- 5 main actors

0:22- casting director

0:27- composer of music

0:30- costume designer

0:34- editor

0:39- production designer

0:42- director of photography

0:46- co producer

0:50- co -executive producers

0:56- executive producer

0:59- produced by

1:04- screenplay by & story by

1:10- directed by

The opening credits appear slowly in the middle of the screen, in total there are 16 titles. They have the basic guide on how opening credits are supposed to be, however the 3 MAIN CHARACTERS weren't mentioned in the title sequence, and they are supposed to be at the beginning after the name of studio, name of production company, producer name and then its supposed to be the principle actors; and they didn't have that.