Palendrome Productions

Red Eye – Rachel McAdams, Cillian Murphy – Directed by Wes Craven

Titles: Fast titles flash onto the screen, with upbeat suspenseful music in the background. The title of the film “Red Eye” flashes up fittingly in red which gives off the connotations of danger which is key in a thriller. Titles end with a non-diagetic bang.

First shots:

We see the camera pan across a table with photo’s of a young woman. Eg: the classic family pictures (graduation, pictures with family etc). We then see a man dressed in black walk into shot a put down a set of keys and a wallet with the initials JR on it. As this man walks into shot, we hear rising strings which, with him being dressed in black may signify him to the audience that he is a baddie. He then goes onto walk out of shot. The camera slowly zooms in on the 2 objects while the suspenseful strings in the background slowly rise in volume getting louder until it ends with a bang as a gloved hand snatches the wallet off the table. These shots are perfect to study as a media student as they are one of the most conventional thriller openings I have seen.

Next we are thrown to a different location which looks like a port or a shipyard and we see frozen fish being boxed up. The next shot is an extreme close-up of the frozen fish as the lid of the box slides into view. Then we see a hand stamp down an “APPROVED” stamp on the top and we then see a mid shot of the boxes being loaded up and taken away. In this scene, the change in location from the house to this shipyard is very fast pace, which is conventional of thrillers and makes sure the audience are paying full attention to understand what is going on.

The shot dissolves into the next where we then see an array of photo’s on the top of a table being laid out which show a shot of a skyscraper, its blueprints and the floor plan of its penthouse suite. We also see the back of a person’s head yet it is too short and too zoomed in that we cannot get a look at the person’s profile. This is a classic trick of a thriller as it introduces characters without giving you any information on them. This hooks the audience in and is conventional of a thriller.

Then there is a graphic match cut as we see the shot change as a person slices the top of a fed ex package and slides out JR’s wallet we have seen before, of which he open’s and we see the driving licence of a balding middle age man who we presume is JR. the man then takes the credit and loyalty cards out of the wallet and puts them back into the package. In this scene, the audience is starting to get interested as we see the wallet from the first shot again, yet the man doesn’t even look for any money, so we assume that the person who took the wallet was no common thief.

It then cuts and we see one of the boxes of iced fish being pried open with a crowbar by a thuggish looking man. They then claw away at the ice to reveal a metal crate inside which is then loaded into a van and the fast paced music comes to a crescendo. This finally proves to the audience that something “fishy” is going on and that these people are obviously smuggling something or doing something illegal. This also establishes a “bad guy” to the audience which is a vital role in a thriller film.

The next shot begins with an establishing shot of the “Lux Hotel” and we hear the diagetic sound of a conversation between two women over the top. It then cuts and we see the situation of a young hotel receptionist dressed in white (showing her innocence) where she has lost the reservation of some angry, middle age guests. We then see the classic middle shot/ shot reverse shot of a dialogue scene as “Cynthia” (the receptionist) calls “Lisa” who seems to be the original receptionist. This now gives the audience some details as we now see some characters being introduced to the story and will keep them watching.

It cuts to a low angle shot of a taxi driving in heavy rain (pathetic fallacy) which slams on the breaks as a car cuts across it. This gives the audience a bit of action, something that is conventional in a Thriller. We then see the face of the taxi driver as he yells at the driver through the mirror as a sort of P.O.V shot of the passenger. We then recognise the women from the pictures at the start and from a picture in the wallet and we are introduced to the main character “Lisa Reisert”(Rachel McAdams) where we see her deal with the difficult hotel guest and helping her collegue. This identifies her to the audience as a “good guy” from her attitude.

Overall I believe “Red Eye” to be an exciting and conventional thriller which manages to hook the audience into watching more. I believe the films most good however for it’s villain, “Jackson Rippner” (Cillian Murphy) who despite the cliché name, makes the audience believe that throughout the film that “Lisa” is under real threat and inspired me.

This film has inspired our thriller opening as the shot at the very beginning where we see the wallet being stolen, will also be featured in our film except we have twisted it slightly as in our thriller opening, you will see a mask getting taken