Opening sequence analysis

The Godfather

I decide to choose the godfather as the film I am watching, as it is the same type of genre as my initial idea for the coursework.

The film starts with the credits coming up slowly as we see the word godfather across the screen with blood dripping down it. The film then shows a establishing shot of a big house where a wedding is taking place. There is a slow intense non-diegetic sound being played. We then see the bride and groom. The characters are Michael corleone and his wife; Michael is the son of Don Vito corleone the head of the family. Michael is seen as a man who has settled down and looks quite straight and not a crook.

Then film then cuts from and in the garden where everyone is partying to inside the house in a room where Luca Brasi and another are talking to don corleone. The don is position and the head of the room and in the centre of the screen this signify the don’s importance. Luca Brasi is shown as a brute as he is quite slow and the don asks him for a favour in going undercover against another family in New York. Luca accepts instantly which shows his respect for the don and also shows the power of the don. The film then cuts to the front gates of the compound in which the family lives there is a shot which show the whole house and shows the wealth in which the family has. As the people leave we see them drive of in old-fashioned cars that tells us that the film is based a while ago.

The Films then cuts to the Sonny corleone and Vito having a meeting with a local narcotics dealer. This now tells us that the families’ wealth is coming from illegal sources. The conversation carry’s on as the two parties haggle for prices and we see that Vito doesn’t accept the dealer’s others and is annoyed that the man has “mucked” him around. The dealer then leaves as the family talks about narcotics being a business in which they will make money. Sonny the older of the sons starts to raise his voice to the father as he insists’s on investing in the market. We then get a close –up of the don’s face a he turns to face sonny as sonny suddenly starts to shut up. This shows the don dominance amongst the family and he has the final say and that’s that.
It is quite surprising that as the godfather is the same genre a crime thriller as my initial idea it is so different the opening scene to the film has no real scene of a thriller, yes there is some crime in the narcotics and the mysteries vast in wealth but the opening scenes are quite slow.

This is a quick sideshow of the film with the theme tune which is played right at the beginning of the film!

Initial Ideas

Straight away as a group we decided to pick the genre crime thriller for our open 2 minutes. We decided that the genre was interesting and would be fun to create.

Our film starts with a boy watching TV or playing xbox in his house then goes down stairs and shouts to his mum thats he is going round his friends house.

Then the camera follow the boy down the road and down an alley way. The camera stops at the beginning of the alley way and watches the boy walk away, as the boy walks away he either dissolves into the darkside or get taken at the end (haven't decided yet).

Next we cut to a shot of his friend trying to call him because he is late.

Then straight after we get a shot of the boys phone ringing on the floor in the dark.

After there is a dissolve beetween the shots to a women sitting in her front room reading the newspaper and it says have you seen this boy and a picture of the boy.

Finally the women looks to her right and we get a point of view shot of the boy tied up in the corner of the room.