Audio:
The audio to this opening has a lot of Enigmatic elements to it, which help to confuse and unnerve the viewer, creating the desired suspense. Although when one listens to it for the first time, it appears as a random mess of sounds, it is actually an excerpt from a song by Nine Inch Nails (who are renowned for their grungy, dirty sounding music). There are a large number of different elements that go towards making this music track what it is, and they are as follows:
- Mechanical sounds, such as Gears, Creaking, Tape Rewinds and Electricity. The nature said sounds are using is very disturbing, and adds this sense of 'unnaturality' to the audio. It also ties in to one piece of imagery - the old razor blade - to give a sense of atmosphere of what's going on in the footage.
- Digital sounds, such as Electric Vocals, Electricity, Dial-Up tones, Synthed-Up Choir vocals and Digital noise. Digital sounds like these could be an indication of the time period of the piece (The computer age), and could also give an indication to the scenario of the film (Maybe the killer finds his victims through the internet?) and any props that may appear later on (Computers, Telephones etc.)
- Vocals, such as the Synthed-Up Choir, the Electric Vocals, and also the "You've got me closer to God" quote. The presence of the vocals, alongside the imagery of hands and what appear to be bodies, adds a sense of Humanity to an otherwise very unnerving, unpopulated scenario. Also, the "You've got me closer to God" quote both hints towards the film's religious connotations (The Sevend Deadly Sins) and the theme of death (Being close to God = Heaven = The afterlife).
- Scratching sounds are very animalistic, as well as being very threatening to the viewer (scratching is generally an attack by animals - painful). Also, this is an indication of the violence that may or may not unfold later on in the film.
- And there's a Drumbeat to ensure that a rhythm is kept in the audio, as it is a music piece. But, this Drumbeat only kicks in later on in the sequence, speeding up the action and helping to build up suspense.
Imagery:
There is a large variety of imagery in this opening sequence. It is edited in a very quick-fire fashion - one image/short piece of footage after another - so that we're never paying attention to something for any longer than 1/2 seconds. The imagery is generally of a very mysterious, shadowy nature, but it does give a lot away...
- The on-running theme of the Scrapbook. A majority of the sequence (if not all of it) revolves around the creation of a scrapbook. There is imagery of Sewing the pages, sticking extracts and photos down and writing. The fact that the person in the piece is so keen to record his doings, shows us that this is his main incentive for his actions. The content of the book that is shown though shows his/her intentions are far from peaceful.
- Disgusting imagery, such as the photographs of bodies, the drawing of the mangled hands and the sequence of the person in focus shaving skin off their fingers, all disgust and unnerver the viewer. The images of the bodies highlights that this person has a fascination with the death of others (reasons why are unknown to the viewer at this point). These images are of a vile nature, showing some truly grievous injuries (a man with a nail though the back of his skull, for example), which helps the viewer understand that this person has a sick obsession.
- The Typewriter contrasts with the modern feelings of the audio, and makes it seem like this person is either of another time, or is at least behind the times in terms of technology. The Old Razor also highlights this, even though we see hardly anything of it due to the fast paced editing of it's sequence.
- Again, highlighting the person's lack of modern technology, there are scenes of Photo Development. This is an old fashioned way to produce hard-copy photographs, and the fact that this is present in the sequence shows off the fact that the is behind the times. But also, the photo lab has an eerie red light about it, and red being the colour of danger, death and blood, highlights the bad intentions of our character.
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