Detailed Analysis of three film openings...

As the opening to my film will only be two minutes long, I tried to look at the first two minutes (or over, depending on where seemed like a good cut off point) of the films I decided to study. I chose to look at Shrooms, Sherlock Holmes and Silence of the Lambs.

SHROOMS:

Opening Credits: In Shrooms, the opening credits are simple – black background and white writing. They are coming forward and don’t last long, they are effective they aren’t too complex. Heavy breathing can be heard over them and then the film starts.


Camera movement

When we see the shot of the castle, it is at a low angle – suggesting that the building may have superiority over anyone who dares to go near it. There are many extreme close ups during the first part of the scene, such as when we see what looks like blood oozing from an object that appears to be a bucket or some sort of container.
There is an image of a hand soaked in blood and it appears to be shot with a fish eye lens effect – focusing on a certain image and not the background.
The camera pans across as we see the girl running through the woods, following her to see where she is going.
The close up shots on the eye are there to intimidate the audience. The long shot of the woman hanging is needed to get in the whole image, whereas the other shots are more effective when you can’t see the whole picture because it leaves more to the imagination.
I like how there are a wide range of shots in the opening scene.

Sound

The music is very important. From the very beginning there is a low drone sound (even from the opening credits). The music is orchestral, but extremely eerie. Sound is added as the names appear and it fades as the names fade. When the director’s name is seen, the sound of heavy breathing starts.
There are many noises added in that make the scene seem like a nightmare: the sounds of children crying, a girl screaming, man groaning, chains moving, cogs tightening, and wind all add to the effect that the character running is in a living hell.
Throughout all of these diegetic sounds, there is always a low drone and the sound of the girl’s heavy breathing as she tries to run away from something.

Mise-en scene

The props in the opening scene are so important because they show why the girl might be scared, and in turn scare the audience. Shots of blood and violence automatically make the audience wonder what has happened and why. The jump to the castle is effective in creating a sense of abnormality because the windows look very elongated, which looks unnatural – the castle-type building looks like something you would rarely see in real life. The thick bag over a child’s head has a smiley face on it, and I think this is even more disturbing than if it were a sad face, because in the situation, it would seem impossible to be happy, so the unnatural feel is more menacing.
The costume of the girl looks like jeans and a jacket – and this is normal for a young girl, so the audience are left wondering why she is scared and running away.

Editing

There is a jump cut very soon into the scene, the camera jumps from the girl running, to a scary castle – this could be to show what she is running away from.
The shots in the house look like they have been edited so that there is a very low saturation and the objects being shown look grey showing coldness, but the red blood can still be seen – showing the importance of bloodshed in this film.

Lighting
The lighting is very dark from the start, which instantly suggests that the film will be dark too. There is a black glow around the castle and this shows the importance of it and how dark and sinister it is, because it’s the only thing seen in the shot. There seems to be a blue tint in the woods, which gives the feeling of abandonment and coldness. The lighting is dark all the way through, even when the characters are on the plane, there still seems to be a slight darkness, and this could suggest that there are darker situations to arise.