Analysis of opening sequence (Saw 1)



In the opening sequence there is a man inside of a dark distorted room in a bath tub asleep, suddenly a blue light appears and he wakes up choking on the water in shock, as his head arises from the water, the blue light suddenly disappears into the bathtubs piping, he then starts screaming as if a child where In pain, then suddenly hears a voice in the background saying “there’s is no point I have tried” then the guy that was in the bathtub demands that the lights are turned on, as he has been in darkness for so long the lights hurt his eyes as he once again screams in pain, then repetitively starts swearing as he sees his leg tied to piping alongside the wall & sees a dead man on the floor and demands for answers, this was in the first scene which is approximately 3 and a half minutes long.
The two main characters introduced to the film are the guy that was tied up in the bath tub and the other guy which is opposite him on the wall tied up their, these where the only two characters introduced in the opening sequence.
The characters have been constructed in a weird atmosphere and the audience couldn’t really related to them as no-one would or could of possibly been in such a position, once the characters have been seen in these circumstances it makes us suddenly wonder, why are there two men tied on walls and why is their a dead guy in the middle etc which gets us thinking and once we start thinking like this the hermeneutic code takes place as we start to put bits and pieces together which starts to gain out interests and makes us want to know more about the movie which will gradually maintain our interest.
The opening sequence setting refers to us that the person tormenting these people has to be a cruel and twisted person as they are locking in a shower room kind of place which is full of broken tiles and random accessories such as bathtubs to make us feel that something gruesome is about to happen as there is already a dead guy on the floor, but the setting is ideal for the kind of tormenting that takes place within the film as it is a deserted place.
The first main shot is a close up to allow us to see that there is a man in the bathtub and then suddenly turns into an extreme close up to show us what his reaction will be to the blue light and being in a bath tub, once he gets up from the bath tub and is on the floor and demands the lights to be turned on and shows a worms eye view which shows his vulnerability to the situation and to the surrounding.
There is slight sounds of water ripples slashing against the bath tubs & which turns into a gasp of air as he wakes up due to the light, panting and choking noises are made also as it shows that he was being held down by the water stopper, loud shouting noises of help are cried out as everything goes silent all you can hear is the cry of help echo around the room, he talks to himself in a manner as if he thinks he is dead as he hears a silent but deep voice saying “ your not dead” he demands for light to be turned on in a deep stern voice, distorted non diagetic noises on a high pitch are made as he creeps over to the body slowly, tempo gets faster as different shots of the dead body and the room is shown & once he sees that the there is no physical way out he screams louder for help, if you watch the movie abit longer you can see that jamming is used, which shows us that there is no physical way that these two can leave with inflicting pain on themselves or others.
Opening credits are displayed in a dark atmosphere with gory, high pitched sounds in the background of knives sharpening, the font of the text is ideal as the pain parts such as twisted production is placed in the centre with large font to make it stand out from anything else in the shot & the colour also used is ideal as it is dark shading colours with a hint of red.