Saskia Smith AS Media Production

When the film starts all we can hear is the sound of  elevator and suddenly we hear Thomas breathing heavily and coughing and genreally struggling whuhc is played at a high volume. You can tell that his mind is deorinentated and he is very confused by his facial expressions and the way he reacts to his surroundings. He is on the floor of this lift on his hands and knees which represents him as powerless and weak to the audience. As the lift keeps movng up we see flashes of light but overall the lightingis very low key which is a convention of a thriller. The movement of the light and the elevator adds constant pace and builds up to where the lift is going to take him.

 

The lift is presented to be cage like and presents Thomas to be locked in there, that also represents him as powerless as his has no control over what he can do. He stays on the floor which shws the lack of power and strength he has and the lift starts to move faster and faster which creates tension to the audience because of how fast its moving. The life is making strange noises which dont sound safe and with the cameras the whole thing skakes which makes it seem dangerous. As Thomas is recovering he starts to move when we hear a pig speal  which shokes us and Thomas and makes Thomas jump back to the oppsite side of the lift. Thomas then moves closer to the cages pig where the camera changes from a medium shot to a close up of Thomas face then to a close up of thomas moving the sheet off of the cage where the pig is which again scares Thomas making him jump back again in fright.

 

We then see a high angle shot of Thomas looking at the top of the lift and hitting the lift and shouting 'HELP' the high angle shot makes him look inferior. It then jumops to a POV shot looking at the end of the lift and it looks red, they reach the ceiling and Thomas drops back to the floor of the lift. Everything turns red which suggests danger and then the lighting turns green and then it goes pitch black and the only sound we are left hearing is Thomas's breathing. After that it is another POV shot of Thomas looking up and the cage opens and it fades to white from the light.

 

We then see thomas from a high angle shot then see another POV shot of Thomas surrounded by lots of boys opening the cage and looking at him. Gally then comes very close to the camera. He is much larger in the frame, so is represented as more powerful, compared to all of the other characters. Gally says “Day one greenie, rise and shine” and picks Thomas up by the neck of his shirt. Thomas is thrown to the ground and the the others are all laughing at him. Thomas then gets up and sprints as fast as he can without even looking around. Someone shots 'we've got a runner' suggesting that everyone new trys to get away but noone ever does. It then cuts to a close up of Thomas running and the sound of his breathing and heart beact is dominant in that shot. Thomas then falls over and we hear everybody else laughing at him.

 

There is then a tracking shot of Thomas looking around at his surroundingsx to find that he is trapped by large walls. The camera starts to zoom out making Thomas look smaller and it then cuts to a black screen with the title on it.

 

This opening sequence is very good at building up tension however, it converts common representations of males being strong ande powerful.