Leon - Luc Besson

Here is a list of some techniques used in the opening of Leon with some information of what is done, why / the effect and genre notes.

• use of crane shot through the city - audience understand location/setting, unique and different


• soundtrack - asynchronous, syncronised, it ends when something happens which makes the audience concentrate on what they can hear aswell as see, conventional


• extreme close ups - eg of main character, doesn't reveal him stright away, makes audience ask questions & creates mystery, relatively conventional and helps create a key element of the thriller genre; tension


• dramatic pauses - eg in dialogue eg "are you free on tuesday" ..................... "yeah I'm free on tuesday", again creates tension & is highly conventional


• use of shadow - creates mystery and and makes the audience ask questions, conventional


• things going on out of shot/ frame - eg voice out of frame, adds mystery & suspense - makes the audience ask questions, like whois saying that, whats happening etc


• enhanced diegetic sounds - eg neck breaking, knife, is implied violence, makes it highly obvious to the audience, very conventional


• character observation, main character is a hitman, he never misses a shot eg only 3 bullet holes, 3 bodies, 1 shot kills