District 9 Opening Scene Analysis

 

District 9 is a 2009 film directed by Neill Blomkamp starring Sharlto Copley. The film has a mainly science-fiction background, centering on aliens arrival on Earth and their being forced to live in slums in Johannesburg. Using this genre, the film explores the issue of social segregation and racism from a new viewpoint.

The film uses a sound bridge between the opening credits and the opening scene to establish the location of the shot before the audience sees anything. We hear the sounds of phones ringing, footsteps and lots of talking, typical office sounds. The first shot is a medium shot than pans in to a close up of a man at his desk in the office. Interestingly, the opening of this film is set up as a documentary to introduce the plot, locations and characters of the film before dropping this filming style for a more cinematic feel around half way through the film. The costume of the man is a sweater vest worn over a shirt, a typical costume of a character who is practical rather than fashionable, which is stereo typically a socially-awkward characters archetype.

The man in question introduces himself to the audience as Wikus van de Merwe and a title card states "MNU Alien Affairs." This sets the science fiction element of the film in place early on. Wikus reinforces the socially-awkward image already imposed on him (through costume-work) by acting as such in front of a screen. The character does not know where to look and seems eager to impress the camera, showing he leads quite a boring office life and being on camera is an exciting prospect. This also works to make the audience sympathize with the character and identify him as a protagonist. The following introduction from Wikus gives the audience a taste of the plot. He says he and his office "engage with the prawn on behalf of MNU and on behalf of humans." This builds anticipation as the audience are yet to be introduced to these "prawn" and Wikus talks of "engaging" the prawn on behalf of the human race as if it is something most people would not want to do i.e dangerous.

After the introduction to Wikus we are given an extreme long establishing shot of a hot country with a large spaceship hovering above the city. A narration starts from UKNR Chief Correspondent called Grey Bradnam tells us that "to everyone's surprise" the ship landed directly over Johannesburg in South Africa rather than any of the major cities people would expect like Washington or New York. This sets the location of the film up as well as letting the audience know the difference between this and many other sci-fi films. The music that accompanies this shot also works to help establish the location as the music has an African feel to it which the audience can apply to what they see on screen. The narration continues to expand on the back story which sets up the situation and plot of the film. Another extreme long shot of the spaceship is shown whilst the audience are told that after 3 months of no movement, humans decided it was best to cut their way in.

A series of fast paced point of view shots show a team of people working their way into the spaceship wearing hazmat suits and using torches. The shots take the form of a body-mounted camera that sees whatever the people see. Another point of view shot introduces the main sci-fi genre convention, aliens. Here the audience are given an anticlimax, as the aliens seem weak and non-confrontational rather than the normal alien archetype of being strong, powerful and aggressive. This yet again pushes the audience to believe this film is a stand-out to the crowd of alien invasion films that all follow the same patterns. Another difference would be the protagonist we are introduced to (Wikus) being quite awkward and shy rather than brave and confident, as most sci-fi protagonists are.The 3 words the narrator associates with the aliens are malnourished, unhealthy and aimless. This makes the audience side with the aliens as well as raise questions as to who the aliens are, where they come from and why they are so weak. As an opening 2 minutes, District 9's work well as they introduce the genre of sci-fi well while highlighting all the aspects of the film that make it different to most sci-fi films. This amplifies interest amongst the audience at the prospect of seeing something unique as well as wanting answers to the questions immediately raised by the opening scene.

The Departed Opening Scene Analysis

The Departed is a 2006 film directed by Martin Scorsese starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson alongside others. The film follows the actions of an Irish mob operating in Boston.

The first shot of the film is video footage of a fight between several people in the streets in the midst of what looks like a riot to the audience. The reason it can be assumed this is actual video footage of an event rather than a staged fight for the purpose of the film is the shaky camerawork filming the scene as well as the poor quality of the image making it look like news footage. This single 7-second shot to kick off proceedings lets the audience into some very important information very early on. This film is clearly going to be violent. A brawl in the streets between a handful of people as an opener is effective at setting the tone of the film at an early stage, the audience now knows exactly what to expect from the film ahead of them, and this acts as a sort of warning. The fight could also show the chaos that people are capable of causing and this now makes the audience expect a similar sort of chaos from the Irish mob. The background music with the scene is Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones. This shows the scene is set in the past around the late 60's or early 70's and is providing the history for the characters.

The first character we are introduced to is a middle-aged man that seems confident with himself by the way he moves and strolls around. He supplies a brief narration at the beginning of the film that layers his character more efficiently so the audience can see the many aspects of his personality. This narration also gives a brief description of the Irish mob which the narrator describes as "real headbreakers...they took over their piece of the city." This builds tension within the audience as they now know they are going to be introduced to some very menacing people.

In this narration, he uses the racist slur "niggers." We can connote that this is a man who is very much a relic of the past, yet to move on from the discriminatory past of America into the equality and political correctness of today. It also makes the audience dislike the character from the off, identifying him as the antagonist of the film. To reinforce this the first shot of the character is in darkness with only his outline visible, a clever piece of lighting work. This darkness carries the connotations of evil and fear which the audience from then on associates with that particular character.

After the opening scenes introductory phase we have an establishing shot of the outside of a delicatessan-like business. This same shot continues and pans into the delicatessan, where we see the owner go into the till to hand the antagonist some money as soon as he sees him enter. The dialogue with this scene also identifies the antagonist of being someone who is feared. "Don't make me come down for this again," is the line the antagonist uses to which the owner replies "It won't happen again Mr C." The owners false respect for the man despite having to hand over his money without a word shows Mr C is a menacing character who is not to be messed with.

Mr C then turns to a young boy sitting at the counter next to him and identifies him as "Johnny Sullivans kid." The audience are also told the boy lives with his grandmother. This suggests the boy has a troubled home life as we know he has a father but lives with his grandmother. The audience now sympathises with this character and knows he is a character of importance to be taking up so much of the shots he is in, so the assumption can be made that this boy is a protagonist.

Throughout the entirety of this scene the boy is shown in full light whilst Mr C is not once shown fully, always in the shadows. This accomplishes two things. Firstly it differentiates the antagonistic and protagonistic personalities of Mr C and the small boy and highlights Mr C's evil and menacing nature and the boys innocence. It also makes it hard to make out Jack Nicholson's (Mr C) face, the benefits of which is as this scene is meant to be set in the past you cannot work out his age. Therfore later in the film he does not look the same age as he does in the past-set scene. This is quite clever production work which identifies a solution to the problem that also makes sense thematically.

The Dark Knight Opening 2 minutes Analysis

The Dark Knight is a 2008 film directed by Christopher Nolan, the 2nd of the Batman trilogy. The genre could be defined as both superhero and action, maybe part drama as well. The opening 2 minutes work to introduce the antagonist of the film, the joker, and show the audience the threat he poses without ever actually seeing him on screen. The scene opens with a long establishing shot of the city the film is set in, panning in to a particular building where we see a window being broken from the inside. The background music of the scene is composed well as it features ominous tones and a repetitive ticking noise like the sound a stopwatch makes, quickening the pace of the scene and building up expectations of action to the audience. The establishing shot shows the film is set in a modern day city, another convention of many action films.

The next shot is a close-up of a man wearing a scary looking clown mask in the room with the smashed window. This costume-work is effective as the audience is now intrigued as to who these men are and why they might want to cover their faces, as well as the fact their masks look threatening. The following shot is a medium shot that shows a second man wearing a similar clown mask, one shooting a zipwire out of the window he just smashed. The gadgets they are using (zipwire) and the bag of equipment they have with them connotes these men are professionals on some sort of job, clearly underhand by the smashing of the windows. The use of intimidating masks also shows the activities they are completing are criminal as they are covering their faces so they cannot be identified.

We as the audience are shown this job is of a larger scale by being introduced to several other characters all donning the same clown masks, 3 in a car, 2 zipwiring from the initial building to another rooftop across the road. The shot of the 2 men zipwiring also features a change in tone from a music point of view as here drums are brought in to really kick up the temp and show the action of the scene increasing. The shot of the men in the car is an over-the-shoulder shot. Dialogue begins with the men discussing their "shares." Here the audience gets the gist of the job they are undertaking and their motives. It is clearly a robbery or heist of some kind that they are completing for money. They also discuss the character of the joker, complaining about him getting a share of the take whilst not taking part in the job.

 The lighting of the scene is bright, with the job taking place in broad daylight. This connotes confidence amongst the men and tells the audience their plan must be well-thought out, as they do not need the cover of darkness like most robberies.  The following shot is a mid-shot of the 2 men on the rooftop, who continue in describing the joker as "wearing make-up...to scare people...like war paint." This has an effect of the audience, making them wonder who this character is, what his appearance is like and his behavior. This is the end of the first 2 minutes of the film, and it works well to establish the antagonist, the threat he imposes and his general appearance without the audience ever meeting him or hearing him. This only amplifies the intrigue as to his character and the suspense before he is formally introduced on screen. A long build-up to the reveal of the main antagonist is a convention used widely throughout superhero films, a trope this film clearly adheres to.

GoodFellas Opening Scene Analysis

The opening scene of Goodfellas works to quickly set the tone of the entire film to the audience and gives us a taste of what to expect from it. Goodfellas is not as easy to define as most films, as it does not keep to just one genre. This film includes genre conventions of crime fiction, thriller, drama and biographical film (as it is based on the real life events surrounding the Lucchese crime family between 1955 and 1980). The opening shot acts as an establishing shot, tracking a car on its journey down the road at night. The darkness of the scene suggests suspicious activities to the audience. After setting the scene as taking place in New York in 1970, the next shot continues inside the car.

There are 3 characters in the car. Here the primary focus is on the driver who takes most of the space up on the shot. This signals to the audience that this character is of the greatest important to us and the storyline, and it is he who we then focus our attention on. This shot lasts for 24 seconds, and deals with the characters reactions to a thumping noise they hear whilst driving. The costumes of the characters show us they are relatively wealthy or operate in the business world, as they are wearing suits. This also reinforces the time the scene is set in to the audience, with the hair styles and costumes clearly belonging to the past. After speculating on whether the driver hit something or picked up a flat tire, they come to a conclusion that is not yet revealed to the audience and decide to pull over.

The next shot is a mid-shot of the characters approaching the boot of the car. They seem hesitant to open it up as the thumping continues, with one character pulling a large knife out of his inside jacket as they do so. This is the moment the audience realises these are not ordinary men, and perhaps live a violent, criminal life. These suspicions are confirmed when the boot is open to reveal a bloodied man with his head sticking out of a body bag. The man with the knife does not hesitate in violently stabbing the man repeatedly after showing annoyance at the man still being alive.

This not only shows the audience the violence these men impose, but also shows they must be experienced in murder and other criminal activities as they looked calm and controlled on the car journey in the 2nd shot of the scene even though they knew they had a dead (or almost dead) body in the boot. After the repeated stabbing of the man, another of the characters pulls out a gun and shoots the man 4 times to ensure he is dead. This suggests a certain air of professionalism in what they do despite it being shady criminal activities.

The final shot of the scene starts off as a mid-shot of the driver before zooming in to a close-up shot. A narrator says "as far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster." This dialogue suggests the "gangsters" of the shot enjoy what they do. This gives us a lot of information on these characters very early on in the film. Clearly they have no morals or fear of the law and are more than likely quite impulsive, unpredictable characters as they must be slightly crazy to treat murder so lightly.We can assume this is the driver speaking as the shot remains still on his face for a long period of time whilst the narrator talks and the opening music kicks in. The music that begins seems to treat the darkness of the scene with a feeling of levity.

Scream Opening 2 Minutes Analysis

 

Scream's opening 2 minutes displays a lot of horror conventions. We are introduced to the main antagonist of the film and shown his dark humored personality through his conversation with the unnamed woman from the scene. This piece of dialogue starts light-hearted and slowly descends into dark tones and evil threats.We do not see the antagonist in the opening scene in order to build suspense and intrigue as to his identity or appearance.

The background music of the scene is slow and mysterious violin chords to start off with but as the dialogue of the scene becomes darker and more dramatic the pace of the music quickens and loud drums are brought in. This could be to represent the woman's heart rate increasing as she becomes more and more scared of her attacker. The attackers voice works with the background music of the scene to show how creepy he sounds and connotes this is no ordinary sane individual.

The woman featured in the scene is herself another genre indicator as the role of the helpless teenage girl being stalked by a killer is common in many horror films. The suspense created by the scene is also helped by the location, an empty house at night with an unknown entity lurking outside somewhere, the house itself providing the only protection from the evil outside.

After the opening dialogue of the scene between the woman and the antagonist over the phone, there is a long establishing shot of the house the scene is set in. The lighting of this shot is helpful towards setting a tone of the scene as the shot is mostly dark, with the only areas well lit the house (representing the safe, protagonist location) and a creepy slow-moving children's swing in the foreground of the shot (representing the antagonists presence outside the house). This highlights the importance of these 2 factors to the audience as they receive the most attention from the shot.

Props aren't really a major factor of the opening scene, the only one of any significance would maybe be the popcorn the woman is cooking on the stove as she talks to the antagonist. The expanding of the popcorn pack as the scene progresses could draw comparisons to the expanding tension of the scene, with the dialogue starting off with small talk about favourite films of the characters and culminating in the antagonist threatening the woman to "gut you like a fish".