SE7EN Title Sequence Analysis

1 - 5 - An extreme close up on a book open with a hand in the background preparing to turn a page. The book also looks like an old book. With white horror style font in the bottom right hand corner.

6 - 7 - A plain back background with the same white horror font with the production company’s name ‘An Arnold Kopelson Production’.

8 to 10 - In this shot there is some white gridded paper with blue lines on, but in the center there is a page stuck on the gridded paper of two hands that are deformed which may have occurred through having their fingers broken. Also the same horror font fades in with the words ‘A Film By David Fincher’ in the top right hand corner

11 – What can be seen as a drill bit in someone’s hand with some material either on a finger or in the hand deliberately placed to maybe disguise fingerprints.

12 – An old razor that makes a sudden shudder movement, but all that’s happening is its opening to allow a new razor to be inserted which indicates gives off the impression that the build up isn’t a nice themed movie.

13 – A pen knife that is being folded out ready to cut something which again gives off the impression of violence

14 to 15 – A plan black screen with the same white horror jagged edge font with the actor’s name ‘Brad Pitt’ just left of the centre of the screen.

16 - A razor drawn from the pen knife is being used to cut someone’s fingerprints which would only really be done to disguise fingerprints

16.5 – the same razor is being moved about at the fingertips of someone to give a clearer view on what it was that cut the skin from the fingertips

17 – Another shot of skin being taken from the fingertips of the same person

18 – A black background with the same white horror font with the name ‘Morgan freeman’ in the same position as ‘brad pitt’ was placed.

19 to 21 – A tea bag is being placed into a cup of water, obviously to make a cup of tea. This gives off a sense of normality in that shot.

21.5 – Pieces of paper with an illustration of a face in much discomfort, but is smudged a lot

22 - The tea bag mentioned earlier being moved about in the cup of water to make the cup of tea.

23 - 25 – a black background with the same white horror font with the title of the film ‘se7en’ on the right hand side in the middle of the screen. This has an effect to enlarge bigger into the centre of the screen then decrease in size back to its original size and position.

26 - 28 – a dirty notebook on a table with a hand moving towards it to open it with the ‘se7en’ still to the left of the centre.

 28 – a close up on the notebook actually opening with dim lighting effects throughout to indicate the notebook does not contain good things.

28.5 – 30 – is a close up on the bottom of the book so the viewer does not see the content which gives off a sense of mystery, also the same font of writing with the name ‘Gwyneth Paltrow’ at the bottom just right form the centre. And on the left hand side starting from top to bottom there is ‘THE S’ in the same colour as the background but indented effect.

30.5 – black screen still with ‘Gwyneth Paltrow’ on screen.

31- 35 – A side on view of something being written in the notebook shown earlier but it is at the angle so you can’t make out exactly what is said. Also towards the end of this shot the same font with ‘Richard Rowntree’ in the top right of the screen.

 35.5 – That sideward view shot fades to a page of writing upside and on also adds another fade with more sideward’s writing but going opposite ways to the back ground, this gives off a sense of confusion and mystery due it not being confined and organised.

36 – A red back ground with 3 objects that look similar to matches lying across what looks like a table. A frequency wave pattern is just above the centre of the screen with a lot of more darkened effects to produce the image of blood and danger.

37 - 38 – A shot of a liquid but with the effect of having a red background to the shot indicates that the liquid could be blood; also something falls into the liquid which causes ripples across the screen.

38.5 – A black background with the white horror font of ‘R. Lee Ermey’

39 – A stream of film being cut with dark lighting in the back ground to indicate the character is up to something mischievous

40 – A picture being held in a hand and the edges of plain white are being cut, a slight bit of light is seen to glimmer from by the shadow looks like a window onto the page/book.

41 – Black background with white horror font, ‘John C. McGinley’

42 – A transparent material is being lined up on a set of apparatus and to be cut, which looks like some sort of sticky tape.

43 – The picture that was being cut up earlier is in someone’s hand on top of the notebook which is open on a page. 

44 – The notebook has now no writing on a page and the hand is moving the picture over towards the blank page and sliding it across to a specific position on the page.

45 – An extreme close up on a white piece of material with green printing on it; the extreme close up focuses on the word ‘GOD’

46 - 48 – Black background with the same white horror font ‘Julie Araskog’ and ‘Mark Boone Junior’

48.5 – photograph of what looks like a dead woman with the characters fingertips running along the bottom of the picture which shows he is not phased by the graphic of a dead person.

49 – A shot of newspapers and articles at the bottom but on the top is some handwriting below the bottom of another photograph.

50 – Flashes back to the 48.5 shot with the fingertips finished the run across the bottom of the photo and leaving the shot.

51 – 52 – a sideward view of a page full of small handwriting, the page is also being turned over to show that someone is looking through this writing.

53 - 55 – fades to black with the same white horror font ‘John Cassini’ ‘Reginald E. Cathey’ and ‘Peter Crombie’

56 – 59 – Then flashes to another black background screen with the same white horror font ‘Hawthorne James’ ‘Micheal Massee’ and ‘Leland Orser’

1:00 – A finger running over a specific word and smudging it out, almost to the purpose that the character doesn’t want to viewer to see the word. A sense of mystery

1:01 – a fact page about pregnancy with certain words being coloured over in black pen so the words cannot be seen.

1:02 – 1:03 A book with blank pages being flicked through at a fast pace

1:04 – 1:05 – a black background with the same white horror font ‘Richard Portnow’ ‘Richard Schiff’ and ‘Pamala Tyson’

 1:06 – a dark grey coloured background with the characters ‘C-24’ marked in white right in the centre of the screen.

1:07 – 1:09 – Another page of writing with a black marker pen going over specific words so they are unable to be seen; sense of mystery again.. Why is the character doing this?

1:10 – 1:13 – an illustration of a shirt haired man getting his eye line marked over in a black marker pen so we are unable to see his eyes; The same white horror font stating ‘Casting By’ ‘Billy Hopkins, Suzanne Smith Kerry Borden’ Then when the writing disappears it flick to having the whole of the illustration colours in so the face is unable to be seen.

1:14 – 1:15 – an extreme close up from the mid point of the pens point of view showing the pen writing something down on a piece of paper.

1:16 1:18 – A shot split into half horizontally where the top half is red and the bottom is the normal vision colour. The top half looks like a picture is being placed into this liquid and pulled back out again, this is the same liquid as what was mentioned before with the red background which could indicate blood? With the same white horror font ‘Music by Howard Shore’. And the bottom half shows a page of paper being written on with a side view.

1:19 – The stream of film that was mentioned earlier is being placed on a blank page in a notebook and then the notebook being closed.

1:20 – 1:21 – A document being placed into the notebook same white horror font ‘Costumes Designer by Micheal Kaplan’.

1:22-1:25 – black background with the same white horror style writing ‘Edited by Richard-Francis Bruce’

1:26-1:27 – What looks like the equivalent to a ring binder is being put onto the notebook also with the white horror font, ‘Production Designed by Arthur Max’. On the bottom of the screen in the centre which stays on the screen through the fade to a black background.

1:28 – Another close-up on the ring binder being stuck onto the note but form the opposite angle as before.

1:29 – Close up of a page in the notebook being turned over to find a different colour page up side down with larger sized hand writing that’s smudged.

1:30 – Red background close-up image of a strip of film in a character’s hands in movement

1:31 – A close up of a page being turned from one image of a dead female to an image of a dead male with a contraption that is inserting into his head.

1:32 – There is a fade from the dead male to another image of a character with their arms crossed across the top half of the body with each hand resting on the opposite side shoulder.

1:33 – Quick fast image of the blank paged book mentioned earlier

1:34- Black background with white horror font writing ‘Director of Photography Darius Khondji’ which flickers from the top of the screen to the bottom and then back up.

1:34.5 – Same writing stays on screen but the image cuts to the blank paged book half open.

1:35 –Same white writing stays on screen but cuts back to a black background image.

1:36 – A close-up image of a thin metal rod is running in between a characters finger and thumb.

1:37 – a close-up image of an image inside the notebook but then having another page turned on top of it, and this page has writing on it.

1:38 – The same thin metal rod as a close up running through the characters finger and thumb but in a slightly different angle facing diagonally to the right of the hand.

1:39 – 1:40– a black background with the same white horror style font, ‘Co-Producers Stephen Brown, Nana Greenwald and Sanford Panilch’.

1:41 – Back to close-up of the blank paged book in the same angle as before.

1:41.5 – a shot of the notebook with white page full of small writing in a black pen.

1:42 – We find out the thin metal rod is a needle and there is an extreme close-up of a thread being fed through the eye of the needle.

1:43 – 1:45 – Dark background but with one image fading in and out of itself that consist of the left shoulder from the back of a male. With the same white horror style font ‘Co-Executive Producers Lynne Harris, Richard Saperstein’.

1:46 – 1:48 – A character is sewing holes through the documents to keep them together which shows they are linked and should be kept together.

1:49 – 1:51 – Black background with same white horror style font ‘Executive producers Gianni Nunnari, Dan Kolsrud, Anne Kopelson.’ Going from right to left in the centre of the screen.

1:52 – 1:54 – A panning shot looking over various documents in a close up image. With the same white horror style font ‘Written by Andrew Kevin Walker’, which also fades into a black background after with the writing still there.

1:55  – A close up of a document with a photograph of a male with his eyes blocked with black ink from the marker pen mentioned earlier, alongside a sketch of the photograph, with a hair in some tweezers being placed on a thin round material.

1:56 – cuts to the page being turned over where there is small size black handwriting all over the page with a smaller piece of paper being placed onto the page.

1:57 – an extreme close up on a bandage around the characters thumb and the stitching being pulled away.

1:58 – 1:59 – Fades to a black background with the same horror style font, ‘Produced by Arnold Kopelson, Phyllis Carlyle’.

2:00 – 2:01 – The word ‘GOD’ mentioned earlier is picked up by a pair of tweezers in an extreme close-up shot.

2:02 – A repeat of the same shot mentioned before with the pan across various documents in an extreme close up.

2:03 – 2:06 – A black background with the same white horror style font ‘Directed by David Fincher’.

2:07 – Cuts to an establishing shot going down to ground level from high up showing a street in the daytime with in white writing ‘Monday’ in the top right corner.

2:10 – Fades to black.