Analysing Opening Sequences - Twilight

Twilight

The movie begins in a  light-hearted and relaxed style with non-diegetic music playing in the background as the Summit Entertainment logo appears on the screen. The first scene begins with a deer in a dark and gloomy forest with a female voice over talking about death. The dark and depressing colours makes the audience feel suspicious about what is going to happen as it puts them on edge. The shot suddenly changes, alongside the music, to a tense point of view chase. It then shows various other angles of the deer sprinting away and leaping over tree trunks to get away from the thing it saw. The loud music, alongside the exaggerated footsteps of the deer and rapid changes of camera angles makes the audience tense as they feel as though something bad is going to happen but they don’t know what.

The chase scene eventually concludes with an unknown male figure grabbing hold of the deer, however at the same time the screen gets brighter and moves onto another scene as the music slowly dies down. The next shot is a close up of a woman’s face as she is standing in a desert somewhere. At the same time, the voice over continues and the woman starts to walk. This close up early on in the film allows the audience to establish a relationship with her straight away so the audience knows that she is an important character. It then cuts to a mid-shot of her getting kissed on the cheek by an older woman, with makes the audience feel like some sort of relationship, before panning around to a man packing stuff into the boot of a car. We get the impression that the older woman is her mum as the voice over talks about her mother and then talks about this woman’s new husband as the camera pans to the man packing the car. The man talks about how he loves them both so the audience feels as a lot more at ease as there seems to be a loving family-like relationship, however, the area and costumes seem dull and dark instead of happy, this makes the audience still feel a bit suspicious. However, this changes as they get into the car and upbeat music starts, making the audience feel more at ease. The next shot shows them in the dark car before a shot of a plane and an establishing shot of a desert somewhere; this gives the audience the idea that they have left an unhappy place for somewhere more colourful and happy.

The final shots show the words ‘Summit Entertainment presents’ over a shot of the desert, before contrasting over to a shot of a dark foggy forest covered in snow with the film title in front. We can only guess that this is the location where they will end up after their flight. The aerial establishing shot of the forest adds a mysterious feel that matches the title name; it also makes the audience remember the tense opening sequence of the deer in the forest.

Screen Shots

The film opens with the usual production company logo.

The next shot begins the film with a small deer drinking out of a pool of water in the middle of a dark forest, this adds tension and mystery to what is about to happen.

 The next shot is a point of view of an unknown character that is creeping through the woods and initiates a chase between him/her and the deer. This chase creates a tense atmosphere around the audience as it is filmed using a rapid change of shots and loud music.

The chase ends when presumably the creeping character jumps out behind the frame and grabs hold of the deer and signifying the end of the chase. The man’s identity and appearance remains unknown, showing that his individual identity isn’t relevant.

The scene then changes to one of a woman standing in a dried up field and a close up shot is soon shown so that the audience can establish a relationship with her as she must have some relevance to the main plot.

The woman then moves over to an older woman who is captured in a two-shot, showing that there is a relationship/connection between the two characters.

The camera then pans around to a man packing a car boot, however, the camera doesn’t go close to him so the director may be hinting that we don’t need to know much information about him, maybe because he isn’t relevant to the main plot of the story.

The camera then uses a mid-shot so the audience gets to know a bit about their location and differentiate it from that of the opening sequence involving the deer.

The next shot is that of a plan taking off, signifying their departure and telling the audience that the location is about to change.

The next two shots establish where they are as well as introducing the producing company again. We can also see that the sky has gotten slightly darker, hinting that there is a time difference.

The final shot reveals the film title as well as presumably their new location. The night sky also shows that time has passed between the last two shots and this one.

Sound

The quiet beginning with the woman’s voice over helps to set the scene before the mood is interrupted by the manic chase scene. During the chase, there is added in running sounds and loud dramatic music, making the audience feel tense, anxious and wondering what will happen next. It then comes to a halt after the chase concludes and the voice over continues. We then later hear music, which helps make the location change from the home to their new location more easy and smooth.

We can use:-
- another good film for seeing how to create an atmosphere
- not many credits in this compared to e.g. Hot Fuzz - there is a lot of variety in how this is approached
- title is now very recognisable in terms of font / colour / style so we need to think carefully about ours
- move between strange events and normal human interaction - we need to do this.