AS student thrilller analysis

Student Thriller Analysis: Locked In

The opening shot shows an out of focus long shot of a street and some street lights, there is also a white overlay title placed in the bottom left corner contrasting the dark sky background, a convention of thrillers is the consistent use of black and white. This then quickly fades out to a full screen title with the same white font and a black background.

 After the full screen title fades out a map of Asia appears with Beijing pointed out, a line then stretches across to London which suggests this is the setting of the film (an urban city, again a convention of thrillers) but also that the main character is from China and has traveled to England for whatever reason. Some non diegetic upbeat aboriginal music begins to play also which adds unease to the film.

We then cut to another full screen title with the same font and background, this then swiftly fades to an extreme long shot of the moon in the sky, the fact that the rest of the screen is black and there is a tiny piece of the white moon links to the title 'locked in', which is then shown as an overlay title in the next establishing shot of another street which is again out of focus.

The camera then zooms in on a man walking and then tracks his movement slightly, then it cuts to a medium close-up of him still walking and then to a medium shot from a low angle as he walks into an alleyway, the editing pace was very quick for these shots as none stayed on the screen for over 3 seconds.

Then there is an overview shot of a girl lying on her side either knocked out or dead, suggesting she is 'locked in' somewhere and her murder/kidnapping is a main part in the plot of the movie, we then cut back to a close up of the man as he walks down the alley, the tightness of the alley and when the two people walk into each other causing the woman's ID to be dropped again links to the title.

It then fades to a tracking shot of two men in black running towards the alley, their dark clothes suggest they are the antagonists of the film but the appearance and the non-diegetic sirens of a police car suggest they were law enforcement of some kind and that the man we had seen before is possibly the antagonist, is this why he came from China? To murder/kidnap the girl previously shown?

The camera then cuts to a close up of the girl's hand with a phone that begins to ring, the phone's background picture of the Earth connotes her death as she is no longer alive on Earth but it again links to the title as the picture is tightly packed against the 4 sides of the phone.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMlTIxT2HKQ