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Analysis of “Donnie Darko” opening.

For the purpose of analysing “Donnie Darko”, it is possible to break down the concept of the opening sequence into micro and macro elements.
There are a small amount of opening credits right at the start, they are white on a black background, placed in the middle of the screen and are in a midi-evil style font, the sound is of thunder, suggesting a storm to the audience. When actually, it is a peaceful morning as the camera pans down the road where a teenage boys is seen lying in the middle of the road, wearing pyjamas and his bike to the side of the road. As he gets up his features are shown, he has scruffy hair looks like he’s in his late teens. The audience makes the assumption that he is not quite an adult because he is riding a bike rather than a car. All of this is shown in one long shot giving the opening a relaxed feel and emphasises the time of day. The mise en scene helps to set out the location of the opening, the classic large sub-urban American housing with trees along the side of the road and the morning joggers in bright tracksuits help to give the idea of a wealthy area, Donnie himself also has an expensive looking racing bike suggesting that his family are financially comfortable.
Within a short space of time the rest of his family are also introduced. His dad is given the stereotype middle-aged father, chinos with a polo shirt, he is using a electrical leaf-blower (more evidence of sub-urban wealth). Also introduced are his two sisters and his mum, throughout introducing them there is no dialogue and a non-diagetic song being played, it is an 80’s pop song. The choice of editing and camera-work is slow and long-shots are used this enables full view of each of the characters surroundings and the use of simplistic camerawork and basic editing gives a ordinary feel to the opening suggesting there is nothing abnormal about the film of the family introduced. However, and graphic effect used to fade out the title at the beginning contradicts this, “Donnie Darko” is displayed in the skyline and is faded out using an ‘end of the world type’ flash of light in the distance. This relates to the end of the film where the end of the universe takes place as a result of Donnie.
The genre is not made clear in the opening of ”Donnie Darko”, however, it is clear that the focus of the film will be on Donnie. His name is introduced to the audience with “Where is Donnie?” written on the fridge accompanied by his mum giving him a confused facial expression, suggesting that she is unaware of where he was that night. Overall, the audience will appreciate the different aspects of the opening; with their attention focused on what will happen to Donnie and how the whole film in general will pan out.

Matt Jones
Words: 504

Analysis of “Stormbreaker” opening

In this analysis I am going to write about the micro and macro elements of the opening sequence.
There aren’t any credits directly at the start and this is a way of introducing the main characters and their roles. When the credits do come in, they are on a video background of a London scene which immediately sets the scene of the film. The opening has a pre opening scene which I have notices is very generic in younger adventure films. Also the main character and his friends are the age of the target audience. “Alex” gets called up in class and is told to talk about his family, when he talks about them he says it in a very average way. At the same time it shows what was really going on within his family, this shows a contrast with the two lives and what the film is going to be about. What “Alex” is saying during his speech completely contradicts what his uncle is actually doing; this makes him seem like a character that is completely oblivious to what is going on around him. The camera work is very simplistic when it’s on “Alex” but when it is on his uncle, there is lots of shaking, lots of snappy shots and very fast movement. The way that the clip is edited and what he says makes it seem like he looks up to his uncle implying that he will follow his footsteps in his job. Later this is solidified with his uncle dying. When “Alex” is talking there isn’t anything interesting in the scene and to make sure that you’re concentrated on him, the camera blurs everything else. What the Clip really wants you to concentrate on is his uncle and the action in it. This is showed in music as well because there is no music when he is talking and fast paced music when there’s action. This is all generic in adventure films, there is normally a story establishing action scene to make sure that the audience can watch straight off with no confusion. Right at the beginning the camera pans across the class room showing all the students and then shows “Alex”, without clearly knowing, you could point out who the main character is. This is so the person looks special in some way to the audience. The film as a whole has a very “James Bond” feel to it, everything down to the way the credits is introduced. This is good because it makes the audience feel like they’re in for an action packed modern adventure film.

Marcus Howard