Explain how mise en scene and editing are used to establish the situation and the characters in the opening minutes of a thriller film.

The opening sequence of Usual Suspects uses mise en scene with editing to establish to the audience the situation in which the characters are in.
The sequence starts with an extreme close up of a box of matches being lit; the camera then changes to a medium shot of one of the characters sitting on the floor lighting his cigarette of the match. From the lighting and body language the audience can already sense that something isn’t right with the situation the character is in. also in the background the audience can see fire and looks as though he is in a damp dark environment.
The camera shot then changes to a shot of barrels with water dripping off them; this reinforces the kind of environment he is in. The camera then changes again back to the character sitting down, he then drops the matches lighting a line of petrol. His body language and how he is sitting suggests that he has ‘given up’. The audience reaction would be them questioning what’s going on why has he done this etc.
The camera then follows the path of the fire, as the camera follows you see a dead person lying on the floor suggesting to the audience that something bad has happened and the character sitting don was involved. The camera keeps following until some mysterious character ‘peeing’ to stop the trail of fire stops it.
The camera the tilts up to look up at him, it’s very dark with use of low key lighting to give the audience a sense of the surroundings. Throughout the whole sequence with this character his head is never revealed to the audience.
It again focuses on the character sitting down, his body language again suggests that he is in a bad situation, he shakes his head and then looks distressed. The camera then follows the other mysterious character as he walks down the stairs. The director has done this to create suspense concentrating on every detail about the situation and what’s happening in the sequence. The way in which it is edited is very clever, when the character walks across to the other character sitting down it gets dead bodies in the shot giving the audience an idea about what happened. POV shots and shot reverse shots are used when they are in dialogue to capture facial expression. Which tells the audience how they are feeling in the situation they are in.
The next shot is of the mysterious character standing up, props that are used is a lighter which he pulls out to light a cigarette although he is still kept a mystery to the audience.
Dialogue starts and the audience is then made aware of one of the character names, ‘keaton’, this tells the audience that both of the characters have a history together. The other character standing up then pulls out a gun and points it at ‘keaton’, this tells the audience the kind of relationship between the two characters and gives the audience an idea to the type of situation they are in.
You don’t see him being shot, it cuts to the surroundings telling the audience that it’s quite and know one is about to witness it. The way in which it’s edited is very clever, the characters are established not too much is given away to the audience enforcing the sense of mystery making us question who they are. Nothing is revealed about the situation, the film comes in after all the action has happened and you don’t know why ‘keaton’ is involved.
The elements of mise en scene that create effect to this situation is lighting, very low key lighting is used to create this dark feeling along with editing used with close ups, camera angles which create mystery and get the audience questioning what’s going on while building suspense. This is the most important aspect of thriller getting the audience excited and involved.
The camera angles used creates a lot of mystery as not a lot is revealed about the characters so it makes the audience want to know more.