Analysing opening scenes-Godzilla 2014
It then starts a rolling picture slideshow of many different objects appearing for a few seconds each, along with the tense war music in the background it really catches the attention of every single person in the entire cinema as the images are so graphic and really show all the points in the war and conflict around the world. These images vary from Darwin s theory of evolution to many pictures of different fossils and evolutionary standard, then to lots of soldiers, army vehicles, researchers, battleships, children, targets, future economic plans and then finally Godzilla and the 1954 Marshall islands experiment added together to make a major storyline.
The reason they use all of these different types of images is to show all of humanity in just over a minute, the pictures themselves are meant to represent all aspects of a war zone and people as a whole with everything that affects the way we live and the borders we have implemented to get across a strong visual image of modern society as a whole to get the audience to really use their own life's to compare and judge what and whether or not the images shown are of any significance to the plot and the film.
Different shot types: at the start of the film the shots are all varied depending on the type of image the director (Gareth Edwards) is trying to get across, he uses all types of shots- close, medium, long, really long, panning, and birds eye view, a rising view, a low angle view and a shoulder shot view. This massive amount of different shots just in the opening two and a half minutes of a film really catches the attention of the audience, especially with the topic of war and conflict as the main image of what comes up. These different shots have been purposely put there just to make the audience think of the true meaning of conflict and why the director very carefully picked all the pictures to add an effect on the audience which will shock them.
The reason the director chooses to have such a vast range of different shots in the opening sequence is because the scene is trying to show a wider picture, in other words some shots are medium or close ups of children to suggest that even innocence is affected in the war zone whereas the extremely long shots of Godzilla is to show just how much of an impact can be, this massive shot helps to emphasize that is the whole worlds problem not any one nations. This idea that Godzilla can be and go anywhere using land or sea is put across in the first scene by him swimming, this emphasizes the fact that any place where the sea or the sky is he could go there because he has no limit on where he can and can't go so for the people who's job it is to deal with it, it would be very hard to predict where and when it will show up.
The characters shown in the opening scene all have very limited time on screen and will play no further role on the movie, this might be because the director wanted people to focus on the striking visuals which depict all that war has an influence on, For example the innocent children who have done nothing wrong, the army officer who tries to console the child maybe after a loss, the whole squad of naval officers on deck of a aircraft carrier who are looking at the nuclear explosion take place. This characters are not significant in the grand scheme of the movie but during the opening scene they are all very significant in creating an opening atmosphere which is very descriptive, it also makes the audience think about the significance of each picture which is good because you want the people in the audience to get a picture in their head of their expectations of the movie before it has even begun so that they can make the film shine out from what they were expecting by adding in some crucial plot twist or some major unexpected event. The opening scene apart from having the music in the background had no other real involvement from diegetic or non-diegetic sound until we get to the countdown part where it counts down from 10-1 and shows different stages of their plans against Godzilla up until number one when they show the bomb form a long shot to symbolize how far away they will have to detonate it from to be safe.
An enigma code is used at the end of the opening scene after the countdown has finished and Godzilla has been hit with a massive bomb, this makes the audience think "how will Godzilla be part of this movie if he got bombed?". It creates a cliff hanger which the audience won't get an answer to till half an hour in on whether or not Godzilla is still alive, this means that the audience are kept waiting in suspense on when he will show up, this creates a quiet atmosphere in the cinema or at home because the people watching the film don't want to miss Godzilla's introduction or part of the movie plot.
