Analysis of the Opeining Sequence of "The Sixth Sense"

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Shot 1:

The titles in the opening credits of ‘The Sixth Sense’ suggest an ambiguous nature of the film. This is due to the idea that the credits gradually appear and are based upon two extremely prominent and almost ‘ghostly’ colours: black and white. The use of the colour white is what the titles themselves are written in and as the names progressively appear they then fade out again in order to convey a ghostly feeling. As the credits emerge on to the screen, a mysterious and hollow sound begins to play. The music echoes the credit titles as when a name fades away; the music gradually lowers and then becomes higher pitched again when another name appears. This idea is expressed through non-diegetic sounds as it is not a natural sound within the film. The music portrays a creepy nature which suggests that the film will be quite mentally forbidding. When the title of the film itself, ‘The Sixth Sense’, appears on the screen the music quickens and becomes more rapid and is then followed by a repetition of the title. This is a suggestion of either; a double meaning or seeing things on more than one occasion which may not seem clear at first.

Shot 2: 

Within the opening seconds of the film, a light bulb is directly seen through the use of a close up shot, a close up shot shows very little background and concentrates on the light bulb. The light bulb gradually lights up suggesting a possible relation to a specific character’s qualities. The idea that there is only one light bulb and not multiple suggests that one individual may be able to see things that nobody else can. Also the use of black background has connotations of mystery and the unknown. From this shot we can convey that it’s going to be a horror film because this slow motion of the light bulb lighting makes the audience feel uncomfortable.

Shot 3:

Olivia Williams appears in a medium shot with her husband, this gives us information about the costume, surrounding and body language. We can also see a ring in her finger, this tell us that she is married to Bruce Willis. The lighting in this shot is dark with minimal light; this shows us that the time of the day is at night, this again is a code of the horror genre because the dark has connotations of mystery and spookiness. There's also a shadow next to Olivia Williams which looks like there's some light coming from the point of view. From the broken window we can see that the house looks very isolated because there's trees surrounding it, this has connotations of being locked into the house with no escape. From their body language we can see that they are trying to run away from someone because they look tense and worried, also Olivia Williams is holding her hand in front of her mouth denoting she wants to scream but she can’t because she’s shocked of someone standing in front of her.