Analyzing Opening scenes

Opening Scenes

What is a scene? What does the opening scene about the movie? What mood does it set? What techniques does it use to pull in the viewer?
Make note how quickly we get know the following information, character, genre, world of the story, theme, situation.

The blatant opening, the main character and film are introduced in the opening scene. In Rios case we understand that Blu is the main character from how much we see from his perspective, during the end of the sequence we are introduced to the poachers those disrupting the harmony of the scene.

Regular day opening the audience is thrust into the lives of the main characters/character everyday life. In fantastic mister fox we understand that this is a regular day for the main characters through the dialogue and the way they act throughout the scene, acting very stilted stealing the pheasants and the dialogue said by mrs fox "If we get out of here I want you to find another line of work, again letting the audience know that this is an everyday job for him.

True beginning opening scene, for example in American tale the mice are in comfort and are forced out of there comfort zone when the Bolsheviks attack forcing them to immigrate to America and create a new beginning.

Dramatic irony, dramatic irony is when the audience knows of something that the character doesn't know about. In Jaws in the opening scene we know that there is something threatening in the water given the meaning POV shot below the swimming girl and the audio que.

Foreshadowing, foreshadowing is referencing something such as an object, environment or even in dialogue that would be used within a future scene. Within the movie scream we see a knives throughout the opening scene with the main character within the scene even playing with one for a moment, this knife would later be used to stab her to death.

Narrator, a narrator opening gives the audience exposition and introducing them to the story, its often accompanied by images illustrating what the narrator is talking about. The beauty and the beast features a narrator opening giving the audience an exposition dump introducing them to the world and the story.

Flash-forward opening introduces to the audience that time won't move linearly. In momentos in the opening scene we see time goes backwards first with the polaroid camera slowly un-developing and fading, and the bullet flying back into the gun. 

Montage opening, montage is a useful technique to give the viewer a large amount of information in a short amount of time, and is often used to show the flow of time (a montage is a quick sequence full of multiple shots). Within the opening scene of Up we are shown through montage the life of Carl and Ellie form when they are first married to the day that Ellie dies within a short span of time.

Homework: watch a film/play a game, Explain what happens in the opening scene, identify what technique the scriptwriter used to introduce film/game Explain how this led into or foreshadowed the films plot or gameplay, How does the opening scene introduce the audience/player to the film/game's genre?




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