Opening scene research- Thriller

The film I chose is Escape room, a 2019 Columbia pictures original thriller directed by Adam Robitel, played by Logan miller (Ben). 

The genre is established right from the beginning with a slight jump scare of Ben falling through the ceiling into a creepy/out dated room. He is breathing heavily and a lot of pleonastic sound is used emphasising his panic and stress as the room is closing in on him, telling the audience that this is a thriller. The tone is very fast paced and unnatural which is caused by short shot durations on objects and Ben himself but also his character positioning as he is frantically moving around the room trying to escape. We know that this is probably set in America due to the fact that Ben has an American accent but in terms of time it could be either modern due to his costume which is modern clothing such as a t-shirt and jeans or dated as the room he is trapped in has a lot of old-fashioned objects and murals in it.  

 

The target audience would be people who enjoy the thrill of movies and like to be put in the characters shoes as this opening scene already causes a lot of stress towards the audience which is rubbed off from Ben's. It could also be aimed at people who enjoy escape rooms as this is what we assume the whole plot of the film is about, we know this because of the movie title 'escape room' and due to the fact, he gets put into a room and is trying to escape. 

Only one character is introduced throughout this whole opening scene which is Ben. This tells the audience that he is most probably the main character as he is the only one focused on in the opening scene. We know that ben is under a lot of pressure due to the fact that the room is closing in on him and he wants to escape. His stress is shown by his lack of dialouge and the proficiant amounts he is sweating. Another character which could be there but not scene is the person/spirit who is controlling the escape room, who could be the bad/evil character as he is causing ben a lot of pain and stress. We also know that they a ruthless as at the end of the scene we are left with Ben slowly getting crushed as he did not escape. 

Once watching the opening scene we would realistically assume that he gets crushed to death as it ends on a blank black screen leaving a slight cliff hanger drawing in the audience. But if he did get crushed there would be no further film so he probably does escape and go onto the next escape room until he gets to the end. 

In conclusion I think that this opening scene does a good job at causing thrill towards the audience and drawing them in trying to see if he escapes and if so how. It also draws in the correct target audience making it a sucsessful film