Gone Girl:
The opening sequence of Gone Girl begins with the production companies name "19th century fox", "regency" and non diegetic music of the company soundtrack in the background. The scene starts off with non diegetic music which sounds to me as if it's a fire crackling. This creates a tense atmosphere as it gives the audience a clue as to what the rest of the film is going to be like and they therefore want to carry on watching.
The first thing that you see after the titles is a close up of a women's face who is lying down and a hand stroking her head. This makes the audience feel on edge as it creates an eerie feel to what is going to happen. The man who we assume is the one who is stroking her head says "cracking her lovely skull" these words used are both very contrasted as "cracking" has a very negative feel and "lovely" has a very gentle shooting feel. The voiceover makes the audience assume that it is a man who is in fact the one stroking the girls head and saying these things. This creates suspense as the audience wonder why the man is saying these negative statements and why he has the desire to hurt her. The shot then changes to a close up of the girl as the voiceover says "trying to get answers" which allows the audience to see her emotions and that she is concerned about what is happening and what the man is saying. The girl quickly puts her head up making the scene very suspenseful and the audience wonder why she is so worried and they become eager to find out what is happening. The close up of her face is almost from a high angle looking down on her to suggest that she is vulnerable and has no power over what is happening. As the voiceover starts to list questions as to marriage the girl puts her head down again to suggest she is once again calm. This suggests to the audience that she once again feels safe, however the audience wants to find out why she looked so worried in the first place.
The questions that are used before the scene starts to fade out makes the audience want to know the answers to the questions and what the man relationship is like with the girl. This makes the audience want to continue watching as they want to find out the answers. The scene begins to fade out and the titles appear with all the actors and actresses names and the character that they feature in the film.
After the titles are shown there are different shots of different locations, meanwhile in the background there is non diegetic music playing to make the audience feel suspense as to why the locations are important and what they have to do with the film. After this the man is seen standing outside his house looking in the road which isn't seen as normal as this doesn't usually happen. This makes the audience wonder what the man has done and what he is doing. The clock before this shot shows the time 6:55am in the morning making the audience also question why he was awake so early and what he was doing outside at this time. The dark ambient lighting suggests an unsettling atmosphere and that something is about to happen as the dark can be seen as a dangerous time. This is because people are normally asleep in the dark meaning the man is vulnerable to something happening to him. A behind the shoulder shot/ low angle shot is shown after this to show the man pausing and looking up at his house. This suggests to the audience that the man doesn't want to go back into his house for some reason.
As the man starts to walk back to his house a small title is shown in the left hand corner saying "JULY 5th, THE MORNING". This suggests to the audience that the questions at the beginning are going to be answered soon and that it is going to be a series of times and places before the eventually find out what is happening at a later date. This can also suggest that the event that has happened was before so they're going to show what's happening in time order.
Gone Girl was a good example of a suspense opening as it used music, different shots and the use of unanswered questions to create suspense for the audience as they want to carry on watching to find out the answers to the questions.
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