Research: A Timeline and Analysis of the Opening or 'Se7en'

The film 'Se7en' was released in 1995. It has an attention-seeking title sequence that acquires series of images that potentially give off clues, perhaps about a character, or even the movie itself, and a range use of non-diegetic sound to replace narration. But the actual synopsis of the film is about a pair of detectives, a rookie and a veteran, who hunt down a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his modus operandi. 

I wanted to analyse the sequence of the opening titles further, and thought that by drawing out a timeline suitable for 'Se7en' to note down the elements of video, audio and text will help me understand the brilliance of the editing.

By watching the opening titles several times will allow me to familiarise more with the video. On an A3 piece of paper I divided it into 4 sections and labelled each as titles, timeline, visuals and audio so I could put each label in an appropriate area. The time line starts at 00:00 and ends whatever the video's clip is length, in this case 02:11.

To record the titles, I first muted the video because at this stage, audio wasn't necessary and also made it easier for me to focus on the titles being displayed on the screen. So, every time a title popped up, I paused and took note of the time along with the actual text on my timeline. I did this for all the titles I saw throughout the video.

As well as titles, I re-watched the opening titles without audio to observe the visuals within the video. I made notes of all elements features in the scenes like locations, characters, etc. I also took note of how the titles were presented like their font, size, positioning, effects, and so on. These I transferred onto the appropriate box, which was Titles.

To evaluate the use of sound, this time I replayed the opening titles with sound on but didn't pay attention at the actual video and focused on what I could hear. I paused every time anything peculiar came on and noted it down in the appropriate box (audio). This way I got the chance to identify what type of music was being played in the background, and thought about the tempo and the instruments involved. I also focused on any feelings or emotions it could have evoked.

I was also thinking about diegetic and non-diegetic sound;

• diegetic sound comes from the film itself like dialogue between characters or any background noise 
• non-diegetic sound is audio where it's been edited in during the post-production stage; this could include sound effects, musical score, voice over, etc. 

I conclude that after researching the opening titles of 'Se7en' and identifying specifically the use of visuals and audio has really given me a broader understanding of what makes a successful opening title. I think what really has struck me the most was the use of different diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The research of this, I believe, has given us a good advantage for our opening titles since ours is somewhat similar to Se7ven.