SE7EN VS FIRST GLANCE
I am going to compare my film 'First Glance' with David Fincher's film 'Se7en'. I'm going to take 9 shots from each film, and compare them on the basis of similarities, and differences.
These are the opening shots from each film. On the top is 'Se7en', and on the bottom is 'First Glance'. The shots are completely different. 'Se7en' opens with a close up of a book. The lighting is dark, and adds mystery to the atmosphere, as we don't know what is going on. 'First Glance' opens up and we are brought straight into the action. We can see a girl walking towards us. There is a lot going on in this scene which is contrasting with the first film as it is very basic. One similarity in this shot, is the use of dark lighting, despite there being a lot of shops which add some light to the second picture.
These next shots are the title sequences for each film. These are the clips where the characters names come on screen. 'Se7en' was one of the clips we used for inspiration for our film. As you can see, these are extremely similar. We wanted to keep the titles extremely similar, so that most of the attention was kept on the action of the film. Both of these clips show black backgrounds, with white simple fonts. A difference between these two shots, is that the font in 'Se7en' is written in small font, and the font also flickers, where as the font in 'First Glance' is very simple, written in slightly bigger font and more basic font which doesn't move.
These shots are of the name of the directors. In 'Se7en' there is a shot of a drawing of hands. These hands are distorted, and there is a shadow passing over this to add more tension. Yet again, the creepy, flicking font is used. In contrast to this, 'First Glance' has stuck with the white simple font on the black background.
The next couple of shots in 'Se7en' are dark, flickering shots of close ups of various items. There are dirty fingertips clutching a razor, dropping a piece of paper, and soaking it in water, where as in 'First Glance' the storyline develops as we see over somebody's shoulder as they look at a picture of somebody, and stroke it.
The 4 shots above are of how the title is shown in each film. The 3 small pictures are of how the title appears in 'Se7en'. I've shown this in 3 different pictures because it comes up really fast and flickering all over the screen, in several different font sizes. It also goes from a black background, to a background which sounds a close up of some grated edged cardboard. This is directly opposite to the way 'First Glance's' title appears. It appears on the screen in capitals, in a really big font. Also in the background is a 'boom' sound. This adds impact onto what would be a fairly plain shot.
Yet again, the next shots in 'Se7en' come flickered and fast so it's hard to keep up with what is going on. There are shots of a man cutting up pictures, and sticking them down, as more title come on screen. Meanwhile, in 'First Glance', we see the same girl walking toward us in the first shot, walk past the camera, and see a dark figure start to follow her.
More flickering shots from 'Se7en' lead to a shot of somebody blacking out words in a book. The lighting is still dark, and there isn't much sound. In 'First Glance' we are given the point of view of the person following the girl from the beginning. The music starts to build up here, so we suspect that something is going to happen.
The shots where the composer are a bit more similar. The one from 'Se7en' has changed from it's usual theme. Half the screen is turnt red, while there is a piece of paper with writing on it, in the background with the text flickering away in the corner. In 'First Glance', the screen has bit split into little boxes, and the title are coming on, around the boxes.
The ending of these films are also very different. 'Se7en' ends completely different to what was happening throughout the opening. There is no more flickering, and no more close ups. It ends on a wide shot of a city full of buildings, with some text saying Monday. 'First Glance' ends on a close up of the stalkers face, then a completely blank screen which contrasts to the fact that there was always something going on during the full opening.
Compared to Se7en, our thriller completely contrasts the conventions of a thriller opening, but compared to a stereotypical thriller opening, i think that ours is basically the same, despite having a female stalker.
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