Analysis of 3 film openings.

The first film opening I will be analysing is  'Rush Hour 3' straight away at the beginning there is non diegetic music, and a establishing shot of a traffic jam where loads of cars are behind eachother on the motorway. The camera goes from a normal shot to a zooming in shot to show how many cars are on the motorway. You can hear the diegtic sound of car horns, the opening few shots straight away set the scene. It then cuts to a blackman (Chris Tucker) who is one of the main actors of the film dancing in the middle of the road. He is wearing police uniform which straight away suggest that he may work for the police in some way. There is the diegetic sound of music coming from his headphones he is also singing along to the song aswell. When the camera zooms into his face you can see he is directing the traffic but is seemingly distracted by the music he is listening to, he begins to sing even louder untill the inevitable crash of two cars and then the scene ends. This is a very funny opening scence and it sets the tone for the rest of the film.

The second film opening I will be analysing is 'Transformers 3' the opening shot jumps straight into the action as a woman is shown to be walking towards a beg and the non diegetic sound of a piano plays. It gives an impression of intimacy as the piano is still playing when the woman goes up to the bed and shows a bunny to a man who seems to be her boyfriend. Straight away as a viewer you are shown two main characters in the film, and that the women has just a shirt on and doesn't have her legs covered shows that the woman and man could be in a relationship together, she then joins him on the bed and sits on his lap and lays her head on his chest, the camera shot shown is a two shot and this is a very intimate shot of the two characters he begins to rub her back and gives her a kiss. There is then a big cut to the woman walking downstairs and the man getting out of bed he says "you love it don't you I'm just your American boy toy" she replies "a lover boy toy" just from this scence you can feel sexual tension between the two and this is a re-occuring theme throughout the film.


The third film opening I will be analysing is 'Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows' at the beginning of the opening scene it jumps straight into the action. There is an extreme close up on a man, the camera is just focused solely on his eyes and what he is saying, creating a dark and ominous atmosphere, the sudden strike of thunder and lighting at the end of his speech is a clever diegetic sound to end the scary nature of the opening scene. There is then a cut to one of the main characters in the film (Hermoine Granger) in her bedroom. Looking at her room is looks fairly old fashioned which suggests that the character herself may be old fashioned there is also a book case full of books which again suggests that she likes to read. When she is called downstairs by her mother non diegetic music of string instruments begins to play this creates a sad atmosphere and you can see this by the emotion shown on her face that something has happened and she must go.


Calvin Morgan