Once upon a time in the west

Once upon a time in the west

This opening is very long and slow paced but the director has scripted everything down to a fly. There are lots of annoying sounds in this opening including the fly, dripping water, knuckles cracking and a rickety old wind mill. The director layers up all of these sounds to create tension. It seems like a long time of nothing really exciting happening for the audience but this makes you appreciate the waiting of the characters in this scene.

After this long wait a train arrives and only one passenger gets of at the station the audience are intrigued by this character as he says nothing just plays on a harmonica there is a fire fight and the tension does not end here as we do not know whether or not this man was actually killed

This opening scene is a good demonstration of careful planning and how to build tension without music or dialogue, for this reason it is very effective and makes the audience excited about the rest of the film.

Children of Men

Children of Men

The opening scene for the 2006 sci-fi adventure film, children of men is established very quickly what genre it is. In the sequence we can already clearly see that the film is a adventure film.

 the sequence starts out with two newsreaders with no visual aid. All you can hear is a news report on their leading story: how the worlds youngest person has died, straight away you as the audience are immediately gripped by this statement as it raises many questions such how can you know the worlds youngest person? And what has happened to the human race?

As soon as the headline is read out the audience is shown the opening scene of a normal café where the customers are all staring at the screen to see the report except one character who is trying to still go about his business, it is obvious that he is going to be the main character.

After this character has purchased his coffee there is a long uninterrupted shot of him leaving the café and you are introduced to the world outside that is clearly set in the future the audience is assured of this as the date “16th November 2027” fades onto the screen

The lighting outside seems quite dull and grey and gives a depressing atmosphere in the film already alongside the news report the audience can tell that this is a sad concept for a film.