Saw (James Wan, 2004) analysis

Saw begins witht the titles which are a blueish white with a plain black background, this is fairly common in some horror/ thriller films. The audiance are introduced to the main character (Adam) right at the start when he there is a close up of his face underwater, he then climbs out of the bath into a room with very low key lighting.
While the lights are turning on the camera tracks backwards while looking up at them, this helps show that the room is quite large.
During the first scene the audiance find out that Adam is trapped in a large bathroom like room with another man called Laurence who also has no idea how he got there. There are white tiles and many pipes on the walls which help to show that it is a bathroom.
One way that it is conventional is that it is based round a crime, which in this case is kidnap, there are also many enigmas become apparent, for example "why have they been kidnapped?" There is alos a dead body in the centre of the room they are in which raises even more questions.
Adam wears jeans and a shirt, these help to show that he is a fairly average person trapped in this unusual situation which is conventional of thriller films, this also applies to Laurence. The pipes in the bathroom are all various browns and black colours and look very dirty, this helps to make the room feel unpleasent.
Another convention of thriller films is that the antagonist has power over the protagonist, since Adam is locked in a room with no obvious way of escape the antagonist has ower ove rhim which is conventional.
The editing in the opening scene of saw is continutiy editing which heps to enhance the verysimilitude of the situation and make it more realistic, which is conventional of thriller films. Shot reverse shot is used when Adam and Laurence are talking, which means that most of the time you cannot see anything else in the room other than the two corners they are in, this keeps the audiance wanting to know what else is in the room which creates tension.
The camera slightly zooms into some of the shots of Adam and Laurence from a high angle which gives the feeling that they arn't veyr powerful and are being watched.
When Adam and Laurence are talking there are mainly long shots (or at least medium long) shots used, in most of these the camera is looking slightly down at Adam, which shows his lack of power, they look slightly up at Laurence but not all the time, which shows he does have slightly more power than Adam.
There is some music during the bathroom scene although it is quite and not heard much, it is ambient sounding with parts which sound electronic and orchestral.

Some of the ideas we could use in our thriller opening are: An unknown antagonist, uncertainty over who the protoganist is and continuity editing to make the verysimilitude believable. We could also use high angle shots to make the character seem less powerful. In saw the situation the characters are in is made clear but the reasons are not-these become the enigmas that make the audiance want to keep watching, we could also do this in our thriller intro.