Mise En Scene Analysis of "Seven"

The clip begins with a close up shot of the sheets of a book turning. The shallow depth of field means the hand turning the page is blurred and silhouetted in the background; creating a mysterious opening which makes the audience curious.

The first CGI shot appears of the credits. The first line introduces the producer and reads "New Line Cinema presents an Arnold Kopelson production." The font looks messily handwritten which could give connotations that a ghost or a likewise character wrote it; this intiates the horror genre. The font also isn't fixed on the screen, it twitches slightly against the black background making the audience feel unsettled.

Next, a shot of hands being photocopied is shown. An absurd sighting which could hint to fingerprint records and suggests involvement with the police. The shot then continues for us to see a close up of somebody shaving the pads of their fingers with a blade. Maybe this suggests removal of evidence from a violent attack or murder perhaps.

The main characters names begin to appear between cuts of shots and then at 25 seconds, the title of the film is shown. Abstract cutaways of book pages turning, words being written, a film strip being cut and glances of photographs all signify that somebody is planning something in a great length of detail and precision. The majority of the shot types are either close ups or point of view shots which make the audience feel like they are really there and involved and an uneasy, tense mood is created.

Flashes of red occur between the cuts and the colour red represents danger, hatred and blood; three words which are easily associated with horror films. The colour scheme runs along with sepias and grayscales tones which add to the dark, gloomy representation of horror.

The flashes and sketchy movement of the cuts contribute to a jumpy, spooky and mysterious mood to cause the audience to feel uneasy which is the aim of the film. Extreme close ups of needles being held by dirty, cut fingers and then a pad of pages brings uncertainty and question marks left over the happenings of the film. The audience are likely to be confused yet intrigued into the intentions and plans this character in "Se7en" has.

Overall I feel the editors have mastered the horror perception of this opening successfully by sticking with dark colour schemes, close up shot types, jumpy cutaways and abstract clips. The mise en scene of this video certainly makes the audience feel on edge and intrigued into watching the film "Se7en."