What do directors seek to establish in the opening of thrillers?

What do directors seek to establish in the opening of thrillers?

Within the few thriller film openings we have viewed so far in the course (Double Indemnity; The Third Man; Sin City; Se7en; Essex Boys; Layer Cake; and The Disappearance Of Alice Creed), we have placed them on a chart to see how much they represent the following; genre; character; themes; location; tone/mood; and plot. 

Thriller films tend to have the casual location of either a city or an excluded place. For example, the film Essex Boys uses a driving scene to establish the location, but not overly, the scene is in a London town, but it is quite subtle, due to simply being a road location. The shot focuses on a van driving up the street. Other thriller films such as Sin City use a city location on top of a balcony. These contrast each other greatly due to the difference within their location choices. 

Essex Boys uses a simple location, with not much going on and so establishes the calmness of the area. Sin City, however, uses a black and white (with the red of the character) which exaggerates the hectic city below. 

Essex Boys uses vanishing points a lot within the opening. For example, this shot uses an off centre vanishing point which has connotations of being unstable. the car is seen to be driving into the darkness which symbolises that they're heading towards the bleak abyss ahead of them. The tunnel is off centre too which only emphasises further the lack of stability and confidence. Which sets both the tone and location as something of a bleak confusion.

On the other hand, films such as The Disappearance of Alice Creed steer away from establishing location, and focuses on the tone and the mood. For example, this image emphasises the tone of mystery as the items lines perfectly up create a wonder via the audience as they want to know what is going to happen and what is going on, giving connotations of a dark mood. As far as location goes, however, the furthest we see the two men within the film opening go is into a van and then a shop to buy supplies to make their den.
The use of preserving the location is also present within the opening of Layer Cake as they only film one part of location outside of the drug den and the posh building were he meets his boss. This location changes the mood of the opening drastically as at the very beginning, we see a drug base, whereas here, there is a very large posh building that looks nothing like a place where drug manufacturers would go. This connotes the mood as being bipolar due to the sudden change in scenery and lack of location continuity. This shot also changes how we, as an audience, perceive the film as the plot is then - at this point - shattered in out minds as we have no idea what is going to happen next.

Thriller films use things such as colour and composition to establish the characters in their opening. For example, in the image to the right, taken from the film The Disappearance Of Alice Creed, the shot uses composition to align the characters in the middle of the screen with a line between them, which could also be a metaphorical differentiation between them, or a literal. This therefore emphasises the difference between the two and how they are individual but with similarities as they work together to capture the girl. The use of the dull colour palette allows us to see that the characters are plain but menacing as the cold colours of grey and blue add a slight tension to the shot.