Face Off Opening Sequence Analysis

The opening sequence we looked at was the 1997 thriller film, Face Off, starring Nicholas Cage and John Travolta.

From the opening sequence we were able to establish that this was going to be a conventional thriller. It displayed elements of suspense such as when the gunmen was going to shoot. The music that was playing through out the sequence was initially innocent and unassuming. However this soon changed when the gunman fired and also as the suspense was built pre-firing.

The setting was in a fairground specifically located near the carousel. The gunman who was still an unknown entity was located further away on a mound. Due to the carousel's movement, the camera angles constantly changed, this would have made continuity difficult however they managed to do this very successfully.

There were many different camera effects used. Some of these were the out of focus sight of the gunman which then changed to the gunman being out of focus and then sight being in focus as he changed to look through it.

The characters at this point are still unknown to the audience. This helps to build suspense and bring up a few questions to the audience, such as why is the gunman is there and what is the connection between the gunman and the man with his son. It is apparent to the audience, that there is an attempt being made on the man's life and the gunman seems unsympathetic towards his target. However when he accidently shoots the child as well, he changes and becomes more emotional showing though that he's a gunman and his job is to kill. He still has some sort of mortality.