Student Thriller:- 8 Ball

The opening sequence of 8 Ball was created by some students. There were many excellent shots that created an excellent opening. For example: some high angled shots were used to show the snooker balls on the snooker table. Each ball that went into the pocket were shown with the victims. This created the sense that the snooker balls were the killers symbol, so people would know who it was when that symbol was recognised.

In additon, long shots were used to show the character body expression when he was after his last victim. The long shot created the sense of a dangerous and creative person, as the body expressions shown was seen as hard, confident and smart.

Furthermore, inthe opening sequence of 8 Ball, we, the audience do not see the killers faces and some of the victims faces. This tells us that there is a big mystery in the film. It also suggest that, the killer knows what he is doing to make sure that no one catches him out.

The non diegetic sound was very good at keeping with the images. This is because of the pace of the music. The pace was quick and in time with the images, and also showed the killers personality. The music was parallel with the images.

There were many transitions used in the opening sequence. The main tranisition used was the dissolve. This transtion showed time. This is done by when the killer put a certain ball into the pocket on the snooker table, that same ball would be on the victim when found.

In addtion, the shots were very still. This showed that the students filming used a tripod to film the shots. This is brilliant as the shots were clear and not wobbling about. Also, the sequence of the shots were excellent, because it told the story and the meaning well (soviet montage). However, when the students used a pan shot, the moving was very edgy and not smooth.

The opening sequence of 8 Ball was also very good because it showed that dialogue was not needed, and the acting was not necessary and your body language and facial expressions told the story.

However, there are some criticisms of the opening sequence. Firstly, most of the images were too dark and could not establish the lighting very well. Also, there was a loss of focus in the film at some points of the sequence. This did not allow me to establish what was going on in the shot, because the focus of the camera blurred the vision.

Overall, i think that 8 Ball is a very good opening sequence because it showed good shots, a soviet montage to show the meaning of the shots, the music and the body language of the characters.