Kyle Cooper - Se7en

This is personally my favourite title sequence from both film and TV. When I first watched this I was drawn in by the exquisite detail in each shot. The New York Times reffered to this title sequence as “one of the most important design innovations of the 1990s”.

The Mise en scene features images of pages of books, pens writing on paper, fingertips, scissors cutting film etc. all shot in extreme close up. By doing this Cooper creates a huge sense of enigma; we as an audience do not know what is going on, we are simply enthralled by this in very intricate artistic imagery which effectively reveals very little, purposely intriguing the viewer. A tense mood is created as the audience are so unknowing. By shooting all in close up we never see the persons face. We associate the imagery with detective work, or perhaps because of the dark lighting, music and typography we may associate criminal activity, assuming the man is a serial killer or a murderer.
The lighting is very dark connoting danger and fear. This use of low key lighting also creates a suspicious atmosphere. Very little colour is revealed throughout the sequence, showing mostly black and white except for the focus on the red as the pictures are being developed. This harsh contrast implies danger, blood, and horror.
The sequence is in montage format. The clips are completely varied with no chronological structure. This is quite disturbing for the audience as so many random clips are thrown at us in this short space of time, it is difficult to understand what is happening and therefore we feel very unsettled.
tension grows throughout the title sequence as the pace of both the music and the cutting rate increases. In contrast with these Cooper has decided to use slow motion on some of the clips. This enhances our focus on a particular shot or object, connoting its importance. This also varies the pace which again unsettles the audience.
An eerie feeling is established through the use of flickering within the shots and transitions. Cooper uses this to disturb the viewer and imply that something is not quite right. He also uses flickering and twitching in the typography. The font he has used resembles handwriting, this fits in with the criminal connotation, and conveys quite a sinister and chilling tone.