Se7en Opening Credits Deconstruction - Mollie, Seyi, Serena, Ella

The extreme close up shots of the fingers can indicate many things, firstly the uncleanliness under the nails seems to resemble blood which gives us the indication that this man has been in contact with a bloody item e.g. a dead body or a wounded person. Secondly this man also is shaving the skin off his fingers, not cutting his nails but shaving the skin off his fingers which is a form of self harming when looked at literally.

Secondly the sound being used when a jump cut is applied is extremely sharp, it resembles an abrupt sound like a car screeching etc, it brings in a psychological factor into the scene as the sound only comes when he is examining the blade and not cutting himself anymore.

To confirm that this man has actually hurt himself another extreme close up shot is shown when there is another extreme close up shot of him placing a tea bag within a cup of water, his fingers slip into the shot showing one of the fingers with a plaster showing that he was in need of minor medical care as a result of his actions, also when he is filing through a sorting cabinet, his fingers are also shown plastered.

Throughout the opening, we see a book being featured with this we see words that are cut out and altered too it. These words that have been shot to show they have been removed from this book with the use of a pen covering the words, ‘transsexual’ and ‘intercourse’, this may be to the protagonist seeing words as a bad influence, therefore we can infer that the book being shown is a Bible. 

In addition to this, the close up shot of the word ‘God’ has been removed, however the protagonist leaves the remaining of the text. Camera angles show the Bible with close ups and extreme close ups, often from the side showing the thickness of the book and we are able to see how each page is turned slowly, but also from the protagonists point of view. 

Speeding up the non-diegetic sound track when different shots of the book are shown as the credits move along adds a disjointed effect and sound effects have been added to create tension every time a new shot of the Bible is featured. A flashback of the book being turned is used frequently throughout the opening credits, this features several times, emphasising the protagonist working through the book and developing what they are doing. The Bible is very thick and we can see how it includes a lot of pages, and we can see how the colours are not a pure white and have a yellow tint, which is aided by the lighting, which emphasises the fact that the book is old.

Colour is used heavily throughout the clip in different ways. On example of this is the colour red. Red is used as a dominant colour throughout the clip. It is used as a film over the picture of the child that has been scribbled out.

The red in this shot covers most of the screen and also turned the black scribble red as well. This shows the death is frequent within the story. It also can be connoted as danger for the victims of the murders.

The other colours heavily used are black and white. Black and white are used in the typography as well as the actual clip. The colour black is the dominant colour of the two because by having

the white against the black background shows that innocence of the victims is much less significant than the suffering they feel. Black can also connote the mystery in their deaths.

The colours with and red are rarely ever used together. This may be to connote that the danger does not effect the innocence of the victim before they are murdered.