The opening here is taken from a psychological thriller film called 'Secret Window', directed by David Koepp, starring Johnny Depp.
It starts with a sound bridge of windscreen wipers while the distribution company is shown to the audience, this leaves the audience thinking, what might that be? Then, the shot changes and focuses on Mort Rainy (Johnny Depp's character) while driving a car. The shot shown here is a close up, done to show you the facial expression, which looks stressed. This can connote that something bad, worrying or upsetting may have happened to the character. A voice over then plays, which strengthens that view more, as the dialogue is: "Turn around. Turn the car around, get the hell out of here" and "Don't go back, do not go back there". This strengthens that particular view because those are imperatives, ordering him not asking him.
As he back up in a car, heading towards the motel, a monochromatic long shot is shown here, which the blood red colour, connoting danger, of the Motel sign and the car lights stand out. He is then panned across the screen, heading into the cold, gloomy and dark night as he walks into the Motel. The protagonist then walks straight out of the shot as another character walks into it looking puzzled, this can connote that the protagonist has something curios about him, that he has done something without permission. Leaving the Motel, a point of view shot from inside the car is shown, driving towards a blood red coloured door. The sound of a distressed car then dominates. As the protagonist gets out of the car and enters the door, non diegetic sound plays, sounding quite haunting and chilling, again giving you the impression that something bad has happened as the sound creates suspense.
That shot and sound then fades into a long shot of a river, with almost psychological sounding orchestral music. This is in contrast to the first scene, as in this one, the mise-en-scene has a warmer feeling of day, opposite to the cold in the night from the first scene. This is also where the titles start to appear, fading in and back at as the sequence plays, connoting mystery' or 'weariness. As the title 'Secret Window' appears, this is the only blood red title used, making it stand out from the rest, the blood representing a thriller.
This scene then fades again into a long shot of a mysterious looking house surrounded by trees, the camera then has one long take of the whole scene, going around to the side of the house until it focuses on a window. It continues to focus on the window until it reaches it and 'crawls' inside, show a long wide shot of the inside of the house. As the camera continues to move throughout the house, it then focuses upon a laptop opened on a word document, sitting on a desk covered in papers. This may represent that the protagonist is a writer and had a busy time doing it. The camera then 'leaps' over the banister and continues to take one shot until it reaches the protagonist, which he is laying on a sofa with his back facing us. He is dressed in a tattered bath robe, this is representing him as someone who may be low on money or depressed, not willing to care how he presents himself. As this one shot is taken, the non diegetic orchestral sound continues to play right up until the point he is shown.
The whole opening title sequence to 'Secret Window' helps you to understand some points of the movie, without giving too much away. This then leads you to watch the whole film as you want all the questions, which were created in the start, answered. This is one of the main conventions of a thriller film, using 'a taster of what is to come' to grab the audiences attention.
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