How does Welles create an air of mystery in the opening to Citizen Kane?

How does Welles create an air of mystery in the opening to Citizen Kane?

Welles uses lighting to create an air of tension in the opening scenes by drawing the audience’s attention to the upper right corner of the screen. This wide shot gives the illusion of isolation, and asks the question why is this mansion in such desolate surroundings?

The editing of the fences leading to the house shows the audience how secure this building is; with three individual fences match faded in towards the house. During the time when the fence is the focal point of the shot, the background is blurred. This gives a feeling of the area being forbidden. The house itself mimics the intimidating exterior through the use of the light shining through the window. The use of match fading on the window to transition from outside the house to inside the bedroom contrasts with the light, in the light goes out in the bedroom while the light “turns on” outside. This raises the question, what is the light and what does it mean?

Many of the shots in the bedroom revolve or focus upon the snow globe, the famous low angle shot aimed at the door at which the nurse enters is refracted through the snow globe, pointing out the prop as an important item to the story of the rest of the film. The word “rosebud” – the only word we hear the man say before he dies – is followed by silence, giving the viewer a moment to contemplate the word and what it could mean. The effect of the diegetic sound (the smashing of the snow globe) is the first sharp noise we hear; and so it breaks the tension built up by the preceding scenes.

The editing used in the opening scene is used to create an effect. The fade to black transition is used quite often; leading the viewer to believe there is a lapse in either time or story development, which adds to the air of mystery as we don’t know what that development is. The editing style is quite slow, which adds to the tension as the story reveals very little to the viewer, and the viewer’s intent to know more about the plot is undermines by the lack of information that has been given.

The non-diegetic sound in the forests, stereotypical “horror movie” music, give a pathetic fallacy of fear and darkness, despite the film is not in this genre and does not carry on as such after the opening scene. This adds to the feeling that the man in the bedroom is seen as someone to be feared, and his death, while important, is not met with much fanfare.

It is strange for a house of that size and security to be occupied by only two people, which adds to the mystery of the status of the man, and what level of power or relationship does the nurse have with him?

It is also strange to see the man die so suddenly; which leads me to believe he had a previous health problem. If so, why did the man, who is in a position of power and wealth, not have more healthcare available to him and why didn’t the nurse not react to his death?

The cinematography used also creates mystery. The scenes quickly go from wide, long shots when the house is been viewed from outside, but from inside the bedroom, there are lots of close-ups, with very little detail given to the setting or the props in the room. There is a distinct sense of uneasiness created in the opening scene, with Welles playing on the audience, that in hindsight, this scene will make sense despite containing very little information.

Thriller Opening Storyboard

Notes on editing

What is editing?

Putting together film, video clips together, while adding special effects and sound.

Transitions

These are way that shots are joined together.

The most common transitions is a straight cut – where a shot continues straight into the next shot.

Keeps continuity.

Dissolve

A gradual transition from one shot to another, can help continuity show a move from one location to another, indicates that time has passed.

Fade to black/white

One shot fades to black/white. Can show time passing or flashbacks.

Cross-cutting

Action cuts between two sequences to link parallels or contrasts between storylines and their settings. Can create tension.

 

Analysis of Coldplay: Clocks

 

When does the shot change?

The shot changes either when there is an important line in the song being sung (where it zooms in n the singer) or when there is a break in the song, where the camera focuses on the other band members or the crowd.

 

What is the effect of the editing?

The effect of the editing shows the emotion created during the song, both for the audience and band. The pace of editing is slow at the beginning and end, and reasonably fast during the middle. This creates the effect of momentum and paces out the song, splitting it into three defined sections, when is backed up by the piano playing in the intro and outro. The straight cuts between the audience and the band shows the connection between them, and therefore between the band and us.

How fast/slow is the editing?

 

The pace of the editing was quite slow during in the verses, and sped up during the chorus.  This is to signify to the viewer that the chorus is important and the build-up before it has culminated in the chorus.

 

Notes on the decline of the studio system

The Studio System – its decline and the institutes today

 

The businessmen of South California buy sets, director and stars when people realised money was coming in from the film industry. Before this here were no studios. It was very competitive and they did not show rival films.

 

In the Golden Age of Hollywood; there were five major studios:

MGM, Paramount, Fox, RKO and Warner Bros.

As well as three small ones:

Columbia, United Artists and Universal.

United Artists was owned by the actors, such as Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks.

 

Most scholars date the Golden Era of Hollywood between 1924-1957.

After this, American New Wave films became the property of independent film makers.
 

Thoughts on the day of filming and editing

We had to improvise quite a lot on the day of the shoot as we did not realise how small the rooms we were going to be filming in were, which made some of the angles and distances between the camera and Chris quite awkward. We experimented with different camea positions (for example, through the window and taking the camera off of the tripod) to find the most natural angle we could film at. It stopped raining halfway through the day, so we had to refilm the opening scenes to keep continuity.

The had some problems in editing the opening together as we did not know how to add titles onto it. We hadn't filmed some transitional shots so we had to use cutaways to lapse enough time to make the scenes appear natural. There was a scene we wanted to use where there was background noise from a plane flying past, so we had to turn down the audio on that one clip so it couldn't be heard.

Revisions of our final idea - Idea 3

We have decided to use Idea 3 as this had the best appeal in our pitch presentation, was one of the easiest to film and the response to our questionnaire said that this style of film was the favourite among our intended age group (teenagers). We have decided to remove some of the on-screen violence and mature imagery in favour of implication to move the age rating of the film from a 15 to a 12. This allows the demographic to be wider as more people can watch our film.

The original story had the main character as an adult, but we have changed this to a late teen as we are using Chris (a 17 year old) in our film as we feel he would not be convincing as an adult and this would take away from the feel of the opening.

We have changed the idea of the fire to one of gambling debt as getting footage of a fire for the flashbacks would either be too difficult to edit together whist looking realistic or dangerous to do it in real life. The change still allows for a similar feeling of tension in the opening.

We originally had no props, but we are now going to use a passport and pictures of young girls. Since we only have one character, having pictures of other people makes everything feel more connected and gives it more of a story without having to use dialogue.

Reactions to our Idea Pitches

Idea 1

Whilst the idea sounds decent enough, the idea is simply too overdone and obvious to stand out. The difficulty in making an original opening makes this idea pointless without a lot of modification.

Some problems we could face include:

• Filming in a forest means the lighting is limited, especially at this time of year when it gets dark early.
• Since the plot of the idea features a dog, we need to ensure that the dog can behave in a way we want it to. 

We were advised to watch The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity as these are films set in a similar location and achieved great success with a very small budget.

Idea 2

The idea would be very entertaining if done correctly. We had asked Peterborough United F.C if we could use their stadium to film during the week, and they said yes on the premise that we make a donation to their children's charity.

Some problems we could face include:

• The stadium on match day would be very difficult to film in as there would be people in the way and lots of background noise. Our plot involves Peterborough scoring, and so if they didn't it would makes things quite awkward to edit in.
• We would be given a collection of club staff to act as extras during the week, but we would need to go to a game on the Saturday to film establishing shots.
• Filming someone getting stabbed convincingly would be very difficult.
• We would need lots of extras to make it look realistic during our filming in the week.

We were advised to watch The Football Factory and Green Mile as they are good examples of films that feature hooliganism in football.


Idea 3

This was the idea that had the most appeal, both in terms of critical opinion and the practicality in how we would shoot it. We felt before the pitches were presented that this would be the case, although we would need to make a few changes to the plot to keep the overall message we are trying to convey.

Some problems we could face include:

• The original story had the main character as an adult male with a family, but since we only have access to a 16 year old, we would need to change the plot to keep it more believable.
• Since some of the filming would take place outside, we would need to migate any continuity errors if the weather changed. 

We were advised to watch the first episode of Supernatural as it is very similar to what we want to do.

 

Plot of our thriller opening

The plot of our thriller opening is a man (played by Chris Gent) is returning to his old, abandoned house after he has committed the crime of killing his former friend’s daughters over a large poker debt. He finds the house exactly as he left it, and he sets to work finding his passport in a chest of drawers. He finds the passport, but he also finds pictures of the girls he murdered. He quickly grabs his passport and goes to leave, only to find the front door he’d just been through had locked. The scene ends with him going upstairs to be ambushed by the man whose daughters had been killed who had been waiting for Chris to come back.