The Purpose of a Film's Opening Sequence

THE PURPOSE OF A FILM’S OPENING SEQUENCE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VXkUzf1et4

The opening of a film is vastly important to the audience’s enjoyment and involvement of the plot and series of characters they are about to be confronted with, it sets the tone of a movie, the time and the place, and begins to unravel the key themes. Not attracting the audience’s attention within the first few minutes could lead to an overall disliking for the piece so the opening sequence is very key to a film’s success.

The first two minutes to the film Inception, a science fiction thriller really demonstrates how to draw in the viewers by making them want the answer to a lot of questions very quickly. It opens with a close up and slightly canted shot of the ocean, wave’s choppy and harsh, diegetic sound of the water immediately created a feeling of unease and confusion. The close up shot not allowing for much to be seen other than the water, breaking generic film editing rules by not opening with an establishing shot but with said close up. The slow speed of the waves also forming a some-what dreary like state, this then being reinforced with the following close up canted angle of Leonardo Di Caprio waking up on the shore of a beach, the canted angle showing the characters confusion and also electing this same feeling from the audience and various questions such as, why is he here? How did he get here? Who is he? Where is he?

A shot is then shown of children playing on the beach, their clothes bright and yet a slightly dazed filter has been put over the top to represent that it is a dreamlike state he is in, they are not actually there. The cut between shots quick as if the character had just woken up and was blinking themselves awake, this then switches to a shot of the back of the character, a POV shot of a guard, of which we can tell he is due to Mise En Scene and his costume of an official looking uniform, poking his back with a large gun, then lifting up his soaked through jacket to reveal a hand held gun tucked into the back of his trousers. This then causes a series of other questions, why are there guards? Why does he have a gun? Why is he concealing it in a suspicious way? By this point the audience is enthralled and waiting for some questions to be answered, and their wish is then granted with a cut across to the first establishing shot, or wide shot, of the beach and a tall Chinese looking building with further guards guarding this building. This answers the audience’s question of setting is relatively well but the confusion is still present as the guards communicate in a language unknown to the viewer. The danger represented in the mise en scene, such as the gun adds to the mystery of the scene.

The following scene then contrasts with high key lighting in the previous clip, the diegetic light coming from the sun, now, in this new scene, low key lighting is shown, with dark shadows cast from the diegetic lighting used in the second indoor scene, the ceiling lights being the only light source in the room casting a lot of shadows and giving the room an almost golden glow giving the impression of richness and wealth. This darkness intensifies the atmosphere and starts to form the idea of genre in the watcher’s mind. This scene also begins to explore the idea of character, and seemingly introduces what the audience will presume to be the protagonist and the antagonist. The antagonist is shown to be wearing all black and the camera slowly zooms in toward his back profile, so we cannot see his face, only hear his voice, again, speaking in another language, subtitles now being used to show what is being said.

The positioning of the antagonist, sat across the table from Leonardo’s character asserting their opposition from one another. The first mid shot we see of the antagonist is an over the shoulder shot from the protagonist’s point of view and the use of shot reverse shot only showing their hands to begin with creates a sense of unease and perhaps anticipation for action. This establishment of the secretive nature of the scene and the obvious distrust between the characters starts to set up the plot of the story, revealing that the theme is going to be something relevant to this idea of mistrust and secrets. The antagonist here picking up a strange and small spinning top, which he begins to set spinning on the table, causing diegetic sound of the metal hitting the glass of the table and the twisting noise it made, referencing to the idea of science-fiction thriller genre because of this bizarre object which will later be a key theme within the film. This then leads onto a sound bridge; the characters finally look at one another face to face when speech begins in a flash back showing a more youthful looking antagonist, and a slightly more dapper version of the protagonist, in the exact same room, closer to one another and happily chatting. This really capturing the viewers’ attention in for the long haul, developing questions about the back stories of both these men.

           

So in conclusion, the opening sequence of Inception targets the most important aspects of a film opening, drawing in the audience’s attention, beginning to display the themes and the genre of the film, introducing the characters, the protagonist and antagonist and creating a certain atmosphere for the movie. Overall I think the opening to Inception is very effective and makes for a very enjoyable beginning sequence.