Research:Analysis of an Opening(Action) - The Dark Knight and The Expendables

The Dark Knight 

The Dark Knight is an action sequence, which immediately grabs the audience's attention and follows the conventions of an action/crime drama that is stranded in reality. It's a story about the comic book hero Batman. The Dark Knight begins with a bank heist, The Joker takes centre stage in this scene along with 5 other men who wear clown masks and slowly get killed off one by one throughout the clip.

The opening titles of the film have been altered to try and set the scene of the film; all the production companies involved usual opening title colours have been replaced with much more dark and gloomy colours. This shows a clear attempt to try and introduce the film as a Thriller, a mysterious film. This takes a good effect as it does succeed to set the scene and gives the audience acknowledgement of the type of film.

This opening scene starts with no diegetic sounds which appear to add to the dark opening of the film. The next scene starts with an extreme long shot which establishes the scene of a busy Gotham City centre. The scene is shot using a helicopter which crabs sideways towards a skyscraper with dark tinted windows to centralise the audience's focus on the buildings. There is still no use of dialogue of in this scene but there is use of a non-diegetic soundtrack building in the background. The soundtrack appears to start soft and quiet which could connote of a peaceful, tranquil city, but as Batman readers would realise this is never the case.

The first bit of diegetic sound the film uses is when two characters dressed with clown masks fire a gun through a window. This answers why there was an explosion. The scene is shot using a medium close up from behind the two characters.

As the scene goes on, more mysteries are created; the bank manager yells 'Do you know who you're stealing from? You guys are dead'. While picking up and shot gun and walking towards the robbers angrily. They each kill each other off quietly in order to get more money off the portion which is being stolen, the director of the film has used a very clever way to present it, as mysteries keep the audience confused but would be kept interested in watching on.

The contracts of the action genre are made very clear through many features, such as the use of guns, the exploding window, and the bus going through the wall, but especially the music. The music is very subtle, without any definitive melody, but just a bass that plays over the images and pushes the action. The sound levels go up and down according to whether there is dialogue, or action. There are a few moments where the music picks up a bit and adds even more to the scene, when the men are going across the grapple, there are three hits on a drum, bringing out the danger which the men are putting themselves in, to put in more tension and drama.

The Expendables

The way that the film trailer is edited is another convention. The pace of the “cuts” are quick and snappy to generate a fast pace. The sound effects of gun fire and explosions feature heavily and clips of explosions and gun-fire is at the forefront of film trailers for action movies.

In this trailer there is the dramatic voice-over, which doesn't feature so often in modern film trailers, but was widely used in films of the 1980s. This maybe a reference to the era that Stallone, Lundgren, Willis and Schwarzenegger featured in big budget action movies.

The film trailer will also have the production company and the studio of who and where the film was made and also the film’s distributor. The names of the cast members will also appear but, unlike on a movie poster, the “name” will be last. This is because the audience will remember the last name of a movie trailer and very rarely the first, which is normally reserved for the lesser known cast member.

The film trailer is also presented to us that this is a movie about good versus evil and this is done by the “American mercenaries” being calm which is in contrast of the “bad guy character” being depicted by someone who is shouting wildly in an aggressive manner.

At the end of the film trailer the producers have attempted to add a slight comedic element to end the trailer on “high”.

Comparison:

Both films have very strong openings, which establish character and setting through a narrator, and both of them make good use of mystery and plot. The audience hooks onto this mystery and it is what pulls them in, causing both films to have very strong openings.