The Edge Opening Analysis

The opening sequence ‘The Edge’ is a student film which starts with an establishing shot of outside a car park with a teenage boy wearing casual clothes and roller skates. This sets the scene for the film. It shows the audience the location and surrounds the characters will be in which gives them a hint as to what events may take place in the next couple of minutes. The first titles we see are edited so it looks like they are on top of the building, they have been made to blend in with the main image/action. Non-diegetic music is played straight away from the beginning and at first sounds quite eerie and dark but however doesn’t fit the scene being shown as it’s bright and doesn’t fit the horror expectations. So the music and what is being shown doesn’t contrast well to begin with and may confuse the audience.

The pace of the music starts to pick up when the boy is in an elevator which is a confined space so it creates the idea of panic and tension rising. There is a close up of a hand holding what looks to be a bomb. This is obviously an object of significance in the film which suggests the genre may be action and a dramatic event is about to happen. This then changes to a side shot of two men in suits walking towards a door. As the audience has already worked out this is most likely to be an action film, the fact that the men are dressed smart in dark sunglasses is very cliché. The main titles now appear over the shot of the two men walking towards the door, however, the font makes it quite hard to read and it doesn’t match with the rest of the titles. The sequence would look better if the font of the titles matched. The music then quickens and becomes more obvious as the two new characters are introduced which highlights their importance later in the film.

For the titles used in this opening sequence the editor has tried to use colours that match the rest of the scene which fits the genre and looks slick, this mostly works and looks good throughout however sometimes it doesn’t work and looks unprofessional. For example at 2.32 minutes in the colours of the titles don’t match the environment in the shot so it makes them look out of place compared to the rest of the sequence.  The music is very intense and again fits with the theme of the film as it immediately quickens as the chase starts. Even though it’s a chase scene the shots aren’t very fast paced which is what you expect to build the tension, if this was thought about more then the sequence would be more intense.

Overall the low budget is obvious. This needn't be the case, to improve the titles, I suggest they faded in and out instead of just appearing.