Research:Analysis of an opening(Adventure) - Indiana Jones(Raiders of the Lost Ark) and Jumper

Indiana Jones - Raiders of the Lost Ark

Indiana Jones(Raiders of the Lost Ark) is a 1981 American fantasy-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, and starring the famous Harrison Ford.

When Raiders begins, Indiana appears as a very mysterious character who, at this time, we know nothing about. Even though many others, know the character of Indiana Jones very well, this part almost makes me feel as if I am seeing him for the first time.

The Opening of this film starts off with a classic film title, as it would in every film, to inform the audience that its the start a title is shown, in fancy font, to catch the audience's attention.

While the title comes at the same time as a mountain is shown in the background in an extreme long shot, showing the audience where this is set. Extreme Long Shot’s are used mainly to set the scene of the movie the director is trying to create. It usually shows the outside of a building or even a landscape to give the audience a brief idea of where the scene takes place. There is a range of shots used in this film opening. We see the men moving from low angles, which are mainly used to give an effect of how small the audience is to the world. Low angles shots give a sense of powerlessness and makes the audience feel useful in the scene. Towards the end of the opening we see a two medium shot, which is usually used for dialogue scenes, only showing the human from the waist and upwards. People use these shots because they want the audience to concentrate more on the people and very little setting is shown – the director has already shown the setting of the scene before this shot and it is no longer needed to be repeated on a wide scale. The Medium Shot is very similar to the Over-the-shoulder which positions the camera behind a person only showing the back of the head and shoulder. The producers used a range of different shot types to emphasise how deep in the Jungle the actors were, no close-ups were used to identify any characters, although there was one cut where the focus was on an arrow stuck in a tree in front of the Jungle Explorers. Most of the shots involve panning or tracking following the characters through the Jungle.

The men walking towards that mountain, searching for something, all wearing ripped costumes may imply to the audience they have been searching for this mystery thing for a while.

There is a constant dialect, whether its the birds in the background or the sounds at the start build up towards the moment of where the man walks behind a tree to find their mystery search, when he screams the music builds up tension to make it more dramatic and scary. The audio used is interesting as it starts off quite calm, but also has a spooky hint to it, fitting the audio codes that most Action films follow. The soundtracks pace increases as the you near to the end of their journey, it then increases dramatically as a man uncovers a stone statue, giving the audience the impression that something exciting was about to happen.

Jumper

Jumper is a 2008 American science fiction action adventure film.

The mise-en-scene of the film uses realistic locations and costumes. The film appears to be set in real life locations. The costumes for the characters reveal their personalities and social status. This all aids to portray the realism of the film to allow the special effects used and twisting storyline to appear more real life than they actually are. This is an important factor that we must aim to include in the trailer as we want to give the perception of a realistic setting, characters and storyline. The level of realism that we portray will determine how effective the trailer is.

A vast amount of diegetic sound is used throughout the trailer. The main one is dialogue. The use of diegetic sound contributes to the realism of the film, settings and actions. There is also non diegetic sound that is used to add effects and to increase suspense. Examples of this are the special effects used when the actor is transported to the different places. This allows the audience to know that something significant is happening. Also music is used throughout the film to set the pace of action and to also help the audience to detect which location he has been ported to E.g. Egyptian music to tell the audience that he has been ported to Egypt. All of this analysis has helped me to conclude that we will need to incorporate these aspects into the trailer. As the plot of the film is similar to this one and we need to keep the trailer as realistic as possible, then the concepts of diegetic and nondiegetic sound used throughout this trailer will be used.

The editing used is mainly fast and frequent cuts. This creates the image that the film is going to be fast paced and a vast amount of action will be present throughout the film. Fades are also used to show the passing of time and that the cuts shown in the trailer are not consecutive to each other. The cuts are shown in chronological order in reference to the film. This allows the audience to gather a slight idea of the journey throughout the film and the reasons and consequences of events. There are establishing shots used to allow the audience to establish the location or setting of the scene. Close ups of characters faces are also incorporated to show expression and emotions and allows the audience to see how they are feeling and reacting to events. This allows the audience to relate to the actors in more depth. Extreme close ups are used to help show the significance of objects. E.g. when there is an extreme close up of his hand to show the significance of the object he is holding.

Comparison

Both films are adventure like films. Set for the audience to sit back and have a mystery over what will happen at the end. Both films have very strong openings, and both conform to the conventions of adventure films through Chase scenes, extended Fights, physical stunts, and rescues.