The mise en scene of the piece helps to connote a serious tone, and fits the genre of thriller well.
Firstly, the lighting is dark and uses low key lighting with a high contrast. This makes the sequence feel serious and dark. The audience cannot see much of the background and setting which makes them focus on the main events (the characters).
However, the props that the audience can see use iconography to connote a thriller genre: Both the antagonist and the protagonist characters are seen to be smoking a cigarette. As this was very common in that period, but is also used to represent manliness.
Desaturated colour is also used throughout to give the sequence a serious tone and to make the piece feel nervy (the audience can not see much in the frame). This contributes to the restricted narration.
Finally, the clothes (costume) that the characters wear seems to be plain and dark. Especially the male with the gun who wears a black cloak- this helps with the idea of restricted narration as the cloak covers most of his body and face creating suspense.
Camerawork:
In The Usual Suspects, the camera work reveals and hides the events in the sequence.
At first, there is a tilt up to reveal a man in a cloak, this is a revealing shot. However the tilt up stops just before the mans head comes into frame. This creates restricted narration as the audience is unable to fully understand who this character is.
Restricted narration is continued throughout to create enigma and suspense. The antagonist's face is never revealed which engages the audience in the film as they question who the character is. This makes them continue on watching, therefore making the sequence a successful opening.
The tilt up at the start creates a high angle shot of the antagonist which connotes authority and a sense of power. This later proves to be true as this character shoots the other man.
Close up's are also used towards the end of the sequence to display the protagonists facial expressions so the audience can denote his feelings (unusually relaxed). Therefore when the antagonist pulls out the gun and shoots this may come to a surprise to the reader- what thrillers aim to do.
A focus pull is also used throughout two shots to surprise the viewer of the presence of the gun: Slit framing of the antagonist is used where the protagonist is in focus at first, where the antagonist pulls out an object but as this is out of focus, the audience cannot tell what this object is. But then a cut is used and the next shot shows the antagonist in focus holding a gun. This focus change helps to create enigma when the gun is out of focus and reveals what it is when in focus.
Editing
After the gun shot, parallel editing is used to display the sound of the gun shot echoing around different locations. Each location gets further and further away which connotes how the shooting was an important event (a few shots are dedicated to this). It also reveals to the audience where the shooting was taken place -on a ship-, therefore making it an establishing shot. The ship also seems to be empty therefore making te audience question why the men were on the boat at night alone. Also as this event happens at the start of the film, the shooting foreshadows an oncoming event which may deal with the consequences of it.
Cuts are used throughout the sequence to quickly change to the next shot and to make the editing almost unnoticeable. This makes it less distracting and allows the piece to achieve maximum continuity. However nearer the end of the sequence, the editing frequency gets higher due to the growing action in the piece. This helps to build tension as before the shots were long and slow.
Sound
The non-diegetic music soundtrack helps to build tension in the piece by slowly increasing the tempo and volume as the action builds. This adds a more dramatic effect to the sequence and helps the audience to realise the building plot-line.
The music also parallel to the sequence, as when the man drops his cigarette on the oil, the music suddenly builds crescendo and a crashing noise is heard. This helps to create a more dramatic effect.
However, the dialogue (diegetic sound) has a very slow pace and the characters speak in a low and serious tone. This connotes that the sequence is dramatic and serious, but also foreshadows that the protagonist knows about is upcoming death.
The police sirens at the end are also an example of diegetic sound which highlights the importance of the event, and possibly the shock of it to other people.
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