The boy, whom the audience already knows will be the source of trouble, is shot only from a distance or partially hidden until that dreadful noise begins offscreen. Of the entire 10 minutes, almost a minute and a half is dedicated to this sort of tension building up until the final moment. Krasinski cleverly uses the film's "show, don't tell" approach to deliver a unique sort of tension. Sometimes it's as simple as showing who we need to worry about right from the first image.Īfter visually associating sound with danger, Krasinski delivers three key moments that gradually build in tension, and they are all achieved in the most brilliant way: by not showing themselves, whether it's the sister jumping in out of nowhere to catch a falling toy at the last second or the family gripped in fear by something the boy is holding that we can't see. To get around this limitation, Krasinski chooses tension over an outright scare. And it will most likely never feel as scary. Except this film has a crucial limitation in that department. In a horror film like "A Quiet Place," that's usually achieved by scaring the audience. Which brings us to the final and most important rule of an opening: engaging the audience. In fact, the opening is chock-full of these reaction shots, which establish the relationship between the characters and convey a range of emotions, like affection, sadness, fear, and, ultimately, dread. While a line that clearly expresses a character's emotion might be more convenient, sometimes a gaze or a change in expression can be enough to deliver it more convincingly. This is also the reason why the film relies so heavily on reaction shots, more specifically, characters reacting to one another. Want to establish that making a sound can be dangerous? This is all you need to show. Instead of having to explain the daughter's disability, all we need is a single close-up. This unique "show, don't tell" approach can be identified everywhere. Visual films rely on these long and specific scene descriptions that visualize almost everything, from the props to the movement of the characters, the tempo of the edits, and even the direction of the camera. Take a closer look at their respective screenplays, and the similarities are even more obvious. Krasinski refers to two main sources of inspiration, the Coen brothers' "No Country for Old Men" and Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood." The latter also features a 14-minute opening sequence with no spoken dialogue that can also be entirely understood without any sound. While silent films that physically lack sound rely on exaggerated visuals, emotions, and movements to keep the audience's attention, visual films ignore the present sound to rely on simple, yet precise shots and edits to visually convey information. Finally, a wall of missing people signifies that danger is still lurking in the corners.Ĭontrary to popular belief, "A Quiet Place" does not take inspiration from the classic silent films, but rather modern visual films. People have abandoned their homes, and society is in ruin. The title card establishes a specific time frame, and the next three consecutive shots establish that law and order have collapsed. In the case of "A Quiet Place," that languages is "show, don't tell." This technique is most evident in the opening sequence mentioned prior. Every film has a unique style and tone in which it tells a story. The second role of an opening is identifying the visual language. Choosing to leave more out than in lends the film a sense of mystery while offering the bare minimum of information to follow the plot. In fact, these minimal visual expositions are everywhere, from a child's drawing that hints at the creatures' extraterrestrial origins to a newspaper that explicitly states what the danger is. The title card hints at a major event that has occurred before the film, and the next three consecutive shots affirm and establish a post-apocalyptic world. Although they might seem pretty random, the five opening images actually tell you all there is to know about the world. And how "A Quiet Place" achieves this is through minimal visual exposition. With just one title card and four corresponding shots, Krasinski achieves the first role of an opening: establishing the world. Narrator: How do you make a horror film that avoids sound? Let's take a look at the opening of "A Quiet Place" to see how John Krasinski both establishes a world and puts on a master class in tension building with one near-perfect 10-minute sequence. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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