Art of the Title: Se7en

Art of the Title: Se7en

For our title, we decided to do Se7en. We chose this film's titles because we really liked the colours, music and images that the opening uses. We also liked the handwritten text that was used as it adds a creepy and eerie element to the images.

The images that I found most intriguing were the ones below due to the focus on hands, text and written/hand-drawn artefacts (i.e. journals, writing, drawing) all of which are shown in a shadowed, sepia light.

Images chosen by Annabel Evelyn

Cinematography

Throughout the opening credits of Se7en, extreme close ups are used to focus the audiences attention on the props and actions of the clip. It suggests that these objects are of high importance as they fill the whole shot.

High angled shots are also dispersed between levelled shots. The use of high angles creates and intimidating and fearful outlook on the actions and suggests that the actions being performed are not ones of good, but perhaps actions of the villain in the film.

Occassionally the camera is filmed from an on-lookers point of view. This subverts from a typical horror stereotype of using point of view shots, especially with the villain like seen in Evil Dead. This subversion creates a mystery as you are kept as an unknowing outsider, creating feelings of unease from not knowing.

Mise-en-scene

Horror stereotypes are strongly stuck to in the mise-en-scene of Se7en’s opening credits. Their use of sepia tones conforms to horror genre conventions and creates an old-fashioned element to the film. This has a creepy effect as true stories from the past have often revealed horrific and disturbing beliefs and practices from all types of people which distrurbs the audience as they begin to expect the film to play on these old-fashioned beliefs and practices.

The accents of black and use of shaddows recreates the horror stereotype of bad things happening at night. It reinforces the childhood nightmares from being surrounded by darkness, emphasising the lack of light, and as result goodness in this verisimilitude.

Bursts of red have connotations of danger, blood and pain, which are major themes in horror films. It conforms to the audience’s expectations of what is to come in the film. It also supports this idea that the actions being carried out are ones that will bring danger and pain upon someone or something later on in the film, once again suggesting that these are the actions of the villain in the film.

The repeated images of hands creates unease in the audience as it makes them strongly aware that these bad actions are ones performed by a human being. It conforms to the horror conventions of trying to disrupt the audience’s perception of real life, which is a very disturbing thing to do.

Edited glitches, along with the non-diegetic sound of scratches on an some form of audio, also interrupt the scene’s continuity and bring the next image/action forward. It makes sure that the audience is always kept uneasy, as they do not have time to relax when watching, as the continuity is constantly broken.

Mise-en-scene: Typography

The text used for the credits is handwritten in a way that suggests it was scratched or etched into something. The white colour of the text also contrasts against the dark, black base colour, making the words more prominent and appear sharper. This conforms to the stereotype of horror films using scrawny, sharp and thin texts to create a realistic, hand-written look to the text to show the audience that it is a human inflicting this pain.

“Fincher and I decided to use hand-drawn [type] mixed with Helvetica, and he was very excited by it,” says Cooper. “He knew that he wanted it to be drawn by hand, because it was from the mind of the killer, and I was taking that further, wanting it to be like the killer did the film opticals himself.”

(quote from: artofthetitle.com/se7en)

Sound

Non-diegetic deeply pitched music with a pulse-like drum beat plays quietly in the background, accompanied by loud creaking noises and wind and thunder-like sound effects over the top conform to horror genre conventions of music that replicates a human pulse and bad weather noises to create a scary and eerie atmosphere. This is done by reenacting what the audience assume what its like to be in one of these horror situation may be like as adrenaline and fear would give you an elevated, louder pulse. The exaggerated weather noises would also play on the audience’s expectations of horror settings being in gloomy and dark weather conditions rather than bright, warm sunshine.

The music gets gradually louder as the opening progresses and heavily edited and distorted carol-like singing is added to the audio of the clip. This distortion of a iconic symbol of religion and festivity disturbs the audience as it disrupts their perception of an activity that causes them happiness and deforms it into one that instigates unease and discomfort.

Finally the clip ends with a male rock voice singing, “You bring me closer to God.” The harshness of the rocky tones to the males voice contradicts the lyrics usual religious and good meaning. It makes the audience feel troubled as they interpret this line as someone is bringing them to their death. This line is then directly followed by silence along with the screen blacking out. This creates an ubrupt end that could be interpretted as a versimilitude for death, generating a strong sense of fear and disturbance in the audience.