Analysis of Opening scene : Django Unchained

Django: Unchained has the most effective opening scene compared to the other to I decided to analyse. Like the majority of films, the main the company behind the film are credited first before we see anything regarding the film, in this Columbia. The next couple of seconds list the actors involved in the film. The still wide shot in the background begins to slowly move which then turns in to a pan shot as a group of men who appear to be battered and bruised, walk in and orderly line. The first opening 44 seconds are effective as you do not expect to see this. The title then appears in the centre of screen which suggest its importance. The clip also uses close ups to show the expressions on each other the men's faces. The opening of this film is effective as it shows a lot of emotion without the any of the meaning of the story being given away. For example the use of various shots helps to make this an effective opening.

At 1:16 , the scene goes in and out of an unfocused follow shot when following one of the men, in this case Jamie Fox. When the shot is focused you can see the emotion on his face and when shot is not focused text appears on the screen for you to focus on. Text continues to come across in bold red writing listing the people associated with the film. In terms of gaging the audience, the opening minutes of this film, the camera angles and shots help keep the attention of the audience as you could sense emotion through the visual expressions shown on the slave's faces. I think that the opening scenes can be improved.Because of the various camera shots this allows you to focus on something else other than the long list of text appearing on the screen but if this was no the case the audience would become disengaged with the film as they would be just viewing long pieces of text.