Seven's opening sequence.

Narrative Structure:
Seven doesn't have an obvious storyline as it's narrative structure is very much fragmented and distorted. It is believed to be a glimpse into the mind of our villain. Seven gives hints of a storyline, yet, the audience are left to put the pieces together and basically, make a calculated guess as to what the story is about but setting up the story but not in a conventional way. The narrative structure is non-linear which confuses the reader by having no clear narration.

Thriller Codes and Conventions:
Seven has a constant flow of enigma codes. It is continually making the reader ask questions at any particular moment. Like for example; 'Who is cutting his fingertips off?' 'Why is he cutting his fingertips off?' . The many thriller conventions in Seven are all obvious ones. The audience is blinded in many spots in Seven. So the term 'Partial vision; fits in well with this sequence. The audience is only showed certain images and scenes as this create a lot of tension and keeps the audience guessing as to who the villain is and why he is doing it. The lighting in Seven is very dark, and uses the main colours black, white and red. All of which, put together, have quite dark/dangerous connotations.

Camerawork:
As Seven has a non-linear structure it doesn't have a flowing storyline so the camerawork is mostly images jumping from one to the other. There are lots of ECU's (extreme close-ups) as this helps with the partial vision convention by restricting the audiences view and it keeps the villain a mystery. It also creates a focal point and gives us a clear view into this characters deranged and meticulous mind as we get to see exactly what he is doing and, through this, the audience are having a nasty relation with this character as we get to see all these disturbing things up close. Throughout, the camera is almost always still, this emphasizes the shocking images on screen by keeping us completely still whilst watching these disturbing images.

Mise-En-Scene:
The main feature of Seven's opening sequence is the continuous image of this mystery character writing in his book. There are pages and pages of writing, this creates an uneasy tone as this character is obviously very obsessed with his task and the connotations of writing lengths that long are intelligence, this character gives off a very intellectual vibe, he obvious knows what he is doing and exactly how he is going to do it as he's written pages and pages about it. All the images we are shown have some form of sharp object in them, this emphasizes the danger this character is. He has an obsession with sharp objects like, scissors, pins, needles, knives and blades. These all have negative connotations and are, most of the time, associated with the villain.

Sound:
All the sounds in Seven opening sequence aren't normal or natural sounds. Even the screaming in the opening is distorted to make the scene more creepy and disturbing to watch. Underneath all the weird sounds we have creepy music playing throughout, this helps create a sinister tone and mingles well with the distorted image. All together the images and sound, both distorted as they are help the audience to see a clear view into the villains mind. He is not a normal villain, he is a man with a mission and whatever his mission is he has a purpose for doing it and will stick with it until it's over. It's an obsession. The noises we hear are all of a low pitch or a very high one, the two contrast well to create this huge build up of tension. The ending line of the song 'You got me closer to God' this links in with the villains motivation throughout the whole film as he describes in one scene that the reason behind these murders are because God is talking through him, and that he is following the will of God.

Editing:
The shots in Seven are very much overlapping in every part of the sequence, when this happens its called 'dissolving' the shots dissolve from one shot into another shot. They are superimposed on top of one another. This helps create that creepy background and makes the images seem jumpy, this is what gets the audiences attention. The editing doesn't follow a continuous flow, in fact the editing in Seven is a montage editing, this is to create a broken up sequence of images. Subliminal editing is also used, this means that one shot is on the screen for a very short amount of time and most of the time these will be the big clues so the audience will miss most of them and this leads them to ask questions.

Graphics:
The credits in the opening sequence of Seven are white on a black background, this is to make them stand out, they also follow the way the sequence is made by jumping around and flickering on the screen, this links with the distortion of images and continues that creepy sort of fragmented image in the villains head. They are also quite scratchy looking which links directly to the villain as we know he writes a lot of things down so there is an obvious link there. Big actors names come first, and the director's name is always last as that person is said to be the most important.