Analyse to film openings

The Dark Knight

The film starts off showing the ident and no sound, this means the audience don't instantly know what to make of it and get a rough idea of what type of film it's going to be, as in a lot of films, when the ident is produced at the start music is added in the background.

After the ident, the type of opening looks as if it's discrete but a narrative opening is going to follow due to the eary music in the background which suggests something is going to happen. The opening scene to this film is definitely a narrative opening as the audience is introduced to characters and it gets straight into action. The diegetic sound of characters voices, weaponry etc... is very loud which increases the intensity of the opening and gets the audience more into it.

The editing also has an intense effect on the audience as the contrast in slow motion and the fast motion makes the opening scene seem more intriguing and action-packed. Overall the editing is very quick and there is a lot of parallel editing used, as it cuts from the different robbers' jobs throughout the whole scene.

In this opening scene the camera angles are varied as there is a range of different shots mostly including long shots to establish the characters in the frame, medium shots to show characters' body language and also wide shots to establish the location and scenery. What I thought was a great shot was the slow zoom-in on the Jokers mask from 1:20-1:29. I think what also makes this good is the music build-up in this period.

This scene is clearly set in a city as there are high-rised buildings and a lot of people and cars. The props used are mainly weaponry and machinery as it is a bank robbing scene. The robbers also use mass to cover up their faces to avoid being identified. Most of the robbers are dressed smart-casual (shirts, jackets, smart trousers and shoes). Lastly, all the characters body language seems very rushed, the robbers are rushed as they need to rob the bank quickly to avoid getting caught and the innocent people in the bank are very tense as they are under attack from the robbers.