Research into the thriller "Doctor Sleep" opening scene.

Doctor sleep was distributed in 2019 and directed by Mike Flanagan, was produced and distributed by Warner Bros Pictures. 

The total budget of this film was about $ 45 million and the gross was about $ 73 million.

The main cast was: 

One of the interesting facts about the production of the film is that in total nine doors were made for the iconic scene from The shining (1980) but only one had to be used. Another interesting fact is that this film is based upon Stephen King's novel that has the same name. It was written in 1977.

The narrative that is given to us in the opening sequence is that there is a young girl who decided to go to the forest and there she found a woman who was singing, a girl came up to her and had a dialogue. The woman showed a young girl a magic trick. However, after a first magic trick behind the girl there slowly started to appear some people. Suddenly, the girl became scared but still stayed with a woman. At the end of the last trick, the woman grabbed the girl and quizzed it so the blood started to come out from a girl's hand. That is how the opening sequence ended. I think the rest of the plot will be about what happened to a girl, her parent's reaction, how they will find the girl, and if they will find a girl at all. Who is that woman, what is her main aim. I think the audience will find out the answers to all of these questions by the end of the film. I believe that the target audience is 16+ and mainly targeted at boys. It is all due to the fact that it is not that scary for an 18+ film, but it has a lot to think about even throughout the opening sequence.

I think that in this opening sequence we are introduced to at least one main character -- it is a mysterious woman. I am not quite so sure about the girl because it was not that clear at the end of the scene whether she died or no. However, for the first, opening scene this girl and the lady were the main characters due to several factors such as both of the characters were in the center or the only ones in the frame; when there were emotional parts both girl and lady were shown from a Close Up (CU) camera angle. 

One of the key moments of this opening sequence that I have chosen is the ending part of it. When the girl starts to be more terrified and when woman's 'friends' start to come closer to a girl. As a lady grabs the girl's hand and her friends start to gather around both of them, suddenly diegetic dialogue changes on a non-diegetic condense soundtrack, however, it is not very loud, which makes the audience feel more uncomfortable and slightly on edge.  we also get a Close Up (CU) shot of a girl's arm being squeezed. During that part of the scene we also get a girl's eye-line -match with her arm, so we get a CU of the girl and straight after that we get CU of a girl's arm.

Concluding, in my opinion, this opening sequence was successful in a thriller film. Mainly due to the fact it leaves us (audiences) with many questions and we want to continue watching the film and the fact that it is mysterious but not scary like a horror film. It is cleverly done through the use of four technical areas which include mise-en-scene, sound, camera, and editing.  I would like to highlight the fact that in this opening sequence in major parts we either just had a diegetic dialogue or a lack of sound. It highlighted mysterious of everything that was going on and was also making us, the audience slightly worried about the main protagonist (e.g. young girl).

Here is an actual opening scene of a thriller film "Doctor Sleep" 2019.