Sound: The opening credit music is a spiced sample of an uncredited remix of the 'Nine Inch Nails' song 'Closer', this piece of music adds even more tension to the scene and helps the audience to establish the genre more. The music is non Diegetic, but includes sounds from a fire, a record scratching and heartbeats. The sound from the fire connotates danger which contributes to the thriller genre. The scratching of the record creates a piercing effect and portrays an awkward atmosphere, making it uncomfortable for the audience to watch. The effect of the heartbeat pounding in the background creates a horror feeling to the film and the heartbeat is beating rapidly which shows the nerves and promotes tension

Mise En Scene: The Mise en scene is the main key to setting the mood and atmosphere in this opening and for the rest of the film. In the opening scene there are only a few colours used such as black, white and red. The red is a light shade and this connotates to blood which also symbolises danger and violence. Red is limited in the opening scene, but is being used in a darkroom, for photo development, which suggests that the person in the image is either dead or has been involved in a violent attack. This adds tension and mystery to the clip because the audience start using the enigma code, such as What happened to him? How did he die? Why was he targeted?. All of these questions are what the audience may be thinking when watching the opening scene of Se7en. There are parts in the opening where it flashes red, which adds to the existence of death, a drop of blood is also used in the scene. The blood falls from above the camera which suggests that the protagonist has cut themselves, the blood falls directly onto the picture of the dead male. This suggest that death is the main role in the film. There is a lot of black and white used within the opening sequence, which adds mystery and tension, it also symbolises darkness and evil. White is also used a fair amount, which suggests there are innocent victims within the film as well as protagonists. With the black and white film and a hint of colour, this encourages the audience to watch the rest of the thriller .

Titles: The titles are placed on a black background, which makes they stand out from the rest of the image, this helps the audience to pick out the names of the actors involved within the film. When the credits appear they are wrote in a note or ransom font, which contributes to danger and violence. The titles are spaced out around the screen which suggest that it is a cluttered atmosphere and the investigation has been going on for some time, resulting in a lot of paper work. When the credits appear they are situated on the screen for a couple of seconds and then they start to fade out, which contributes to the slow death of the male victim.

Editing: There are a lot of straight cuts, fades, fade to white and fade to black, all of these transitions add to the tension and mystery of the film. There are a lot of flashes used in the opening scene which helps establish the genre more. In Se7en we get a montage of clips showing ominous activities of writing, cutting pictures and news documents. However some of the clips have been repeated in the opening and some clips are overlapping so we get to see do different activities at once.

Camera: There is a kaleidoscope of images being portrayed by an anonymous person doing mysterious activities in the opening sequence, all of these images are to do with police work or they're involved in a forensic investigation. With the shadow of the hand reflecting on the book it gives the impression that the film is going to be based on a bloody, investigation. This is shown through a series of close ups of this anonymous person cutting up negative images, writing in a notebook and even cutting their finger with a sharp razor blade. Also we never see the persons facial or body features, we only see their hands and fingers, the person cuts their finger with a razor blade and then in the rest of the clip we see bandages on their fingers. The camera never moves throughout the opening it only focuses on what the person is doing, this suggests that they don't want to be seen on camera, but want the audience to know what they are up to.