Conventions of an Opening Sequence

Conventions of an Opening Sequence on Prezi

Spiderwick Chronicles

Donnie Darko Annotations

Here is my annotated version of the donnie darko recreation.

Romantic Comedy

Bridget Jones Diary

(Maguire,2001,UK)

Cinematography

At the beginning of the clip there is a close up of the main character which then tracks to follow her highlighting her as the focus point for the audience which also highlights her as the main character. This is also done in a close up to emphasize the fact that she is alone and quite isolated as you don't see the other characters full bodies as either she is in the way or they are cut out of the shot as shown in the gif image below.

Also there is an establishing shot after this which shows where the next scene will be set and from this we can see that it is in London with the old London style architecture and that it is very cold as it seem the the shot is done with a blue filter making things seem very cold there and colorless.





We then get a close up of a party hat which looks frail and used, it is covered in snow and just left in the cold streets to be broken and waste away which reflects the fact that Christmas has passed which helps give us the kind of time that the film is set in.



Mise-En-Scene

The main character in this scene is wearing red pajamas to show the fact that it is Christmas and to also show the fact that she is looking for love as well as these clothes are quite baggy shows that she really doesn't care about her appearance as she knows that there is nobody else there reinforcing the fact she is isolated and alone.
 

We also have the christmas party hat which is frailed and cold in very cold colours emphasising that the chrsitmas holiday is over and its time to make a new years resolution and start a new.





Editing

There are some shots which use a fade into another shot which is used to show the slow pacing of the film as well as to show the passing of time and usually to show that there has been a change of scene the rest of the editing in the film are normal cuts between characters in conversations and things haooening in the film.. This is shown in the screen shot below.



Sound
As the clip starts there is nothing but non diegetic sound until dialogue happens and the main character speaks which is over the music which puts across the feeling of isolation as she is heard over the music meaning a lot of the people are being quiet or just aren't near her or listening to her. and then after this scene there is nothing but non-diegetic sound as she narrates across the scenes making a sound bridge which helps the scenes flow between each other and then it is just the score being played at a loud volume as it works with what is happening on screen as the main character lip sings the song.

Wallander

Wallander

Firewall, 7th December 2008, BBC1

In this opening sequence all the way through a lot of things are shown which makes the audience ask questions about what is going and who the characters are and what exactly has happened and where they are.

Cinematography

In this first shot we have an extreme shot which is also an establishing shot for where the next few shots will be based on this costal part of a country and off in the distance we can see a small white car. This instantly makes the audience start to think of where this could be; what could have happened; why it has happened and who has done it. As the shot helicopters over we see two characters walking away from the car before we cut to this shot below of a two shot of both the characters.

Mies-En-Scene

Looking at the picture of the two characters (above) we can see they are quite dark characters and we get this just from their costumes as they are both wearing dark jackets one of them being leather which is usually worn by biker groups and the type of people who are quite gruff and horrible. The character on the left also has some red hair which connotes death and violence as well as anger meaning that this character specifically must be the leader of the two and the more angry violent type of character.

Looking at the back of both the characters hair we can see that the left character is not as powerful or significant as the character on the right as the character on the right is taller in the frame and has all of these other things about her characters costume as the character on the left seems very plain and normal with normal brown hair and a black hoody.

Editing

In the Image below you can see some of the editing that happens which is a lot of cuts that mainly in this scene switch from the back of the girls or the front of the girls to the male character in the car but once the edits from inside the car happen all of the shots switch back and forth between the female characters and the male character in the car as it is doing this to show what these two characters have done and this leaves an impressions on the audience of what these two characters are like, so within this opening sequence the audience is able to identify which characters are the bad characters and which character is the victim, but with this completely silent shot apart from the ambient sounds and the non-diegetic builds in the score the audience will always have one question and that is what happened to these two characters to make them kill this man or did they do it out of self defense?

Sound
In the intro scene the sounds are very non-diegetic at first before the first cut happens as there is a volume increase in the music that is being played, along with the surrounding ambiance of the wind and the sea, which is also a build up to the cut and when the cut happens everything becomes diegetic with the sound of the two female characters walking and the surrounding ambient sounds. but there is nothing that is non-diegetic until the point of when the female character drops the knife. This is done to give a sense of isolation, that these characters are the only people around which is also shown with their hyperbolic breathing sounds.

Brick

Sixth Sense

Memento Opening Sequence Analysis