2 • Tension Within A Thriller

The short thriller that I will be studying today is Vystrel by Nikita Murphy.

The film is about a woman who we assume is carrying a case of great importance from an elevator to her car. We see that she is tense and nervous form her movements and actions, but we know very little about the reasons why she has the case, or why she is acting 

so nervous. 

The opening sequence is shot in such a way that we have few establishing shots that right from the start point build up tension.

 These three shots give us the location, aesthetic, mood and pacing of the film in the first ten seconds. The viewer is given three images to construct a world around the scene we see, urban, deserted and soulless all these aspects start building tension and we are left wondering, what is going to happen.

Just from his first shot of who we assume to be the protagonist, we already can relate to her, we see her earphones and we associate her with the stereotype of a helpless 'blond' which makes us automatically assume that something bad is going to happen. But we still relate to her and become attached to the characters. 

  

The next shot we see is, the main character with her eyes closed and, staring down at the ground. This causes us to feel like she is worried or ashamed. We as humans find trust in eye contact and she is denying us this. And so we begin to assume the worst.

Also in this scene the camera is placed in such a way that the character has her back to us. Because of how the mirror is placed in the scene. This also gives us the connotations of 

Tension within thriller gmHHHHHHHHHHHH

*        Who are the characters? What are we meant to feel about them? How do we feel this so early on?

*        What do you think, given the tone and language, the rest of the plot line would be? You should explain your decision, with references to the opening sequence. Be creative, but also stick with the conventions.