similar text analysis

Panic Room

The opening scene begins with an extreme long shot as the establishing shot which immediately shows the audience the setting of the film, a busy city using tilt shots to show the length of the tall building of posh offices and never ending scrapers. The use of all of posters, billboards, yellow taxis and all the different colours suggest it is used to emphasis the busy enviroment in which the film is set. A panning shot is then used across the buildings introducing the famous actior of the film, Jodie Foster, in quite slow motion to emphasis her status in the film showing the audience that she is likely to be the main character. Again, several more extreme long shots and birds' eye view of the buildings and the city in general are used to get the audience comfortable with the location of the film, giving them a brief idea of what to expect without giving away too much.

The film starts with a soundtrack of what sounds like a clock tickin along with vague ambient sound of car horns and police sirens, which gives the audience an idea of what the is like without even seeing it yet. The car horn suggests frantic jam packed roads filled with angry and inpatient drivers as well as criminal activity taking place with the sirens. The clock ticking gives the suggestion that a scene within the film will be a race against time. Then suddenly the soundtrack turns back to non-diegetic sound where it turns back to more of a upbeat tempo, building up the intensity in the audience. A long shot of the park with people sitting down with orange tree and skyscrapers behind it was used whilst thediegetic offscreen sound was played of the character talking about her daily tasks and problems. Temporal continuity editing was used from the shot of the trees of the location of the diagetic ofscreen sound, the charcter, using a tilt shot from the top of the trees to the two woman walking and talking. At this point is where the audio is directly matched to the moving image, in other words called synchronous as well as the character being established.

The mise en scene is also used to establish the setting and characters. The orange leave on the trees on the pavement along the curb suggest the setting is in an autumn setting. When the characters were established, they were wearing very long coats, scarves and loves along with other people of the public dressed in dull colours, creating the mood of the surroundings. The character talking appears to be the main character, seems to be rushing wand wearing glasses that obtained the audiences ability to view her identity to give that feeling of suspence and ask questions.

Digital imagery was used throughout the opening sequence to give an illusion of the titles appearing to be balanced on the buildings. The titles were displayed in white so it almost camouflaged with the sklyscrapers suggesting there may involve a lot of hiding withing the film, in other word, establishing the enigma.

As the opening only really introduces the location, setting and characters, it only introduces us to the themes or narrative in a suttle way. From the soundtrack the audience can discover the type of city they live in, for example the ambient sound used of the police sirens gives the thought of a corrupted neighborhood. The use of all teh different soundtrack at different times definitely had a big impact of engaging the audiences interest but also all the use of colour in a busy enviroment as it keeps the audience intrigued with a lot to focus and look at.