Film Opening Analysis

For this task we had to study three film openings credits/scenes and apply a acronym known as 'DISTINCT' in order to describe them. 

Ghost Ship Opening Scene

The opening scene of Ghost Ship takes place on a first class luxury cruse, we can tell this from the style of boat and clothing that the passengers are wearing. We are given the setting for the film in the very opening shot as the camera is flying over the boat. The films appears to be set in the 60's, we can tell this by the opening music, clothes of the passengers and even by the style of microphone the singer is using. Shortly this we meet who we would assume is the main character, the little girl, as she stands out the most to everyone else as she is the only child seen aboard the ship. The little girl can be seen playing with a toy which spells out 'I am so board' which could be viewed as foreshadowing what is to happen next. The captain of the ship invites the little girl to dance and she seems happy, then things take a turn for the worst as a black gloved hand pulls a lever and the music starts to distort and clips of a wire being pulled tighter is shown on screen. Eventually the soothing 60's music is overpowered by eerie dark music as the sound of the wire being pulled tighter gets louder and more frequent. One last clip of the passengers all slow dancing and smiling is shown before the camera focuses on the wire which soon snaps and in a chain sequence of events is shown to slice through almost all of the passengers on-board. The camera zoom and focuses back on the wire which is now covered in thick blood, the passengers faces are shown, the emotionless faces of the passengers shows that shock has overtaken them so they stare blankly at one another. A mans glass of champagne after being cut in half falls to the floor, this the n creates a chain reaction to where most of the passengers upper bodies soon slide off of their lower half and hit the floor. The camera then focuses back onto the little girl on captain who are the last two people standing, we are then given a camera angle through the little girls eyes as she looks back up at the captain only to see that his head has been cut in half and falls off of his neck onto the floor. This is then followed by a scream then the camera goes underwater and the screen fades to black.  


Harry Brown Opening Scene
The Opening Scene of Harry Brown starts with muffled talking and a black screen which quickly jumps into footage of English youth who are forcing one of the characters to smoke some form of hard drug. The characters appear to be in a gang, we can presume this by the muffled words that are heard "once you put your hands on this gun. you're a member for life". The other members than start to grab and push our main character then the screen cuts to black. Shortly after sounds of a motorbike are heard then the camera, which is being held in the hand of one of the two people on the bike, then catches a quick glimpse of one of the youths face, hes is seen to be shouting. This scene could be the aftermath of the drugs our main character did in the first scene as the camera is very shaky and the words that our character is shouting are hard to understand due the way he pronounces some of the words. Our characters then drive down a public pathway abusing a woman pushing a baby in a pram on their way past. They then turn around and drive back towards the woman and our main character pulls out the gun he was given in the first scene and fires a shot the misses the woman. After the shot is fired the sound of the motorbike cuts out and only a deep ringing noise can be heard with occasional sound bites of voices can be heard. Our character then fires another shot which misses and the same deep ringing noise is heard with the screams of the woman cutting in and out in small bites. The third and final shot is fired and this one hits the woman and the deep ringing noise happens but then cuts of into silence, then the camera becomes still and our characters muffled voices are heard again which soon becomes less muffled and the motorbike can be heard again along with the youths voices getting louder. These array of different sounds can be linked to the drugs which our character smoked as the excitement and the higher of shooting the gun caused him experience sounds in the way he did until he killed her then his sound appears to come back to normal which signifies the snap back into reality. Our characters then drive the bike onto a main road and are hit by a truck and the same deep ringing sound are heard for one last time then the camera shows the aftermath of the crash from the perspective of the crashed bike head which slides out and shows us the two bodies on the floor bleeding then the scene cuts out.    


Guardians of the Galaxy
The opening scene of Guardians of the Galaxy shows us our main character in a dark eerie place with the sound off looping wind being heard faintly in the background. Our main character then puts on some headphones and moves a box down towards his belt and clips the box onto his trousers. He slowly moves his hand to reveal a Sony Walkman cassette player and the song "Come and get you love" which is a upbeat, funky song, this sets the scene as a comedic parody like setting. The main character then starts dancing to the music which contrasts to the dark cave that he is walking in. As our main character continues dancing he kicks some small dinosaur looking creatures and then uses rocket propelled boots to jump over a gap in the floor, the solidifies the genres of this film as comedy and sci-fi/fantasy. The main character then over-exaggeratedly runs towards a big, dark door which hes opens with ease. The camera gives us a shot from inside the room and due to it being so dark we can only see a silhouette of our main character. The camera then quickly snaps back to a third person view of our character as he shakes a sphere that he pulls out of his pocket which then lights up as our main character can be seen heading to some other glowing energy source. The main character then places the sphere down into a slot on the floor and the music cuts out then the footage follows shortly after. From this we can tell that Guardians of the Galaxy is going to be a sci-fi/fantasy film with a lot of comedic and parody like elements, We can tell that the film is sci-fi by the strange creatures in the opening scene and how advanced the technology was for humans which would suggest that there are other types of species in this film.