Monday 7 February 2011

Man On Fire

Last night I was watching "Man On Fire" a film by Tony Scott, and even thought it's not directly related to our opening sequence because it's an action/ crime thriller, but I thought that it had a really interesting opening sequence which we could look at to consolidate and improve our ideas.

It starts with a crane shot above a misty Mexico City, with slow string instruments playing over this. This establishes the set of the film, and also gives it a more dark and corrupt feel to the place. The credits are effective because the font and animation of them. Due to the background being generally dark, the white and bold credits which are underlined really stand out. This could help us with our credits.


After this the pace of the sequence begins to speed up and you see a crowd of people walking through one of the main squares of the city. They have edited this section so that there is ghosting of people in the foreground which are at a canted angle, which make the city seem disjointed and makes the audience feel uncomfortable because it is unnatural to see people walking at such and angle and to be able to see through them.


Also with the suspense building music, the director has put shocking facts about the city this film is set it, which gives the audience an idea of what the story is about, Kidnapping and the protection of children. This also solidifies the audiences thoughts that this place is corrupt and generally not nice.

The director also uses a montage of images and videos to introduce the main characters. What is interesting is that the family this film is about are all introduced separately, which you later find out that the father in the family plans the kidnapping of his own daughter in order to fund the corrupt "La Hermadad" which means "the brotherhood", who are the people who organise and execute the kidnappings. Also I realised after watching the film that the montage shown in the credits are actually screen shots of the film itself, so within the first five minutes the audience has already been told what happens in the film, without knowing. This I think is very clever but also confuses me why the director would give away so much in the first couple of minutes. In a way he was preparing us for what lies ahead.





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