Opening Shots

Here are some opening shots that I believe are meaningful.

In "Paul", the opening shot immediately introduces us to a friendly, stereotypical alien. The green colour scheme reinforces the fact that this film will centre around Paul, the alien. The shape of his eyes and mischievous smile on his face suggests that this film is a comedy. The actors involved include Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, this is a well known genre for films revolving around these two actors, other examples include Worlds End and Shaun of the Dead. 

When we consider cinematography, we can infer that the camera favours Simon and Nick over Paul, the over shoulder shot from Paul's point of view looks up towards the two dominant characters, however, we can see that further into the movie Paul becomes more important with level camera shots and occasionally a high angle shot.

The opening shot of Breakfast Club immediately sets the scene for the audience, we can see the dull, yellow colour pallette and the high school words depicted on the front of the building, this conveys that we will be watching a film about high school. In general, the opening is quite empty, but has a strong influence on the audience, for some viewers, they may sympathise the teenagers.

The introduction has a voice over of a presumably teenage character with upbeat music over the top. The director uses a lot of close ups to set the scene. This is effective as the audience are quickly up to date on what has happened. The sound is parallel.

The opening montage in Zombieland tells the audience that they are watching a film about a zombies. Here, we see an immediate juxtaposition of what the audience would expect in a zombie horror. The large man being chased by a zombie-prostitute is quite comedic. The violence and goriness of the zombies is quite distressing but this juxtaposes the lighthearted personas by the characters. This is quite a significant movie opening due to the juxtaposition and the amount of information the audience are given.

The action music played in the opening shot is parallel to the Mise en Scene. When we look at the clothing of the characters in the montage, we can see that they are in formal clothing, this is used to place emphasis on the juxtaposition between the disease and stereotypical daily life, but we are quickly brought up to date on the current affairs - with Jesse being the "last person left".