Three opening sequences to films.

The genre I chose was thriller/crime hybrid, with focus on a very fast paced action packed opening. The first film I chose was Batman: The Dark Knight(Nolan:2008). I chose this because this film utilizes every element of film making very well. The mise-en-scene consists of the masks on the characters, which create a very intimidating set of characters, there was a lot of ambient sound used to keep the momentum and the pace of the sequence up, it was edited to show how much was going on and how each of the clowns were being killed one by one and the cinematography never shows us the faces of the people behind the masks, which makes them even more intimidating.

The next film I chose was James Bond Casino Royale(Campbell:2006). This opening does not feature anything but animated scenes along with a song, sort of like a music video. The sequence shows no narrative but the cinematography shows off many different great shots for a crime/thriller, mainly the fighting and death shots. This scene also shows how music can be so effective at making everything seem so much faster paced and how it creates a narrative itself with the intro/verse/chorus/outro.

The last film I chose was Reservoir Dogs(Tarantino:1992). The opening scene from this film shows the characters walking together under the soundtrack. This sequence is a prime example of the use of cinematography to show the characters, their personalities and the relationships between each other by the use of close-ups of each of their faces and the group shots of all of them. Unfortunately I could not find a clip that I could embed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qBWc8FCEEM&feature=related