Opening Sequence - Children Of Men

As I am currently making my own opening sequence of a film, in class we watched a few opening sequences of films to inspire us when making our own.

The first opening sequence we watched was Children of Men to which it was made in 2006 but set in 2027 in London. The film is an action / adventure / drama / sci-fi where the women in the world can no longer have children. As I was intrigued by the story line, I decided to rent the movie and watch it, where the main character has to save a woman that is pregnant and get her out of the country due to the huge mess in country is in, with wars and murdering’s going on.

Narrative Function

The film is set in 2027 in London to which it shows a packed coffee shop watching the news about the youngest person in the world who is 18 who has just died. It then shows a man walk into the coffee shop, but he is not intrigued about the news at all, so he grabs his coffee and leaves. As he leaves the camera follows him which we then learn that he is the main protagonist. As we see the man walk out of the coffee shop, we then see the coffee shop explode with a screaming girl mysteriously walk out of there, this establishes the genres of the film to which also captures the audience due to the unexpected occurrence. There is no narrative structure shown due to the fact that the audience don’t really know what to expect next and why what has just happened, happened.

Conventions Displayed

First of all we hear two voices from the news which tell us what is happening in the world, as this is happening we see a few opening credits before it shows the shot of people standing in a coffee shop. The opening sequence shows us straight away that it is a major film as it shows us that it is Universal Pictures have created the film. When we first hear the voices from the two News people, they tell us about the world and what has been going on, this shows us the audience that already there must be something major / different going on in the world due to it being the opening sequence. The fact that they first tell us the news report instead of showing us the scene makes us listen more closely as to what is going on as there is nothing else for the audience to concentrate on. As the news report goes on, and the camera shows us the TV and what has happened, we hear sympathetic music playing which shows us that what has happened (youngest person to die) in the film is a very emotional happening. We also learn in the opening sequence that the movie looks like it will be going at a fast pace due to the unexpected happening with the coffee shop exploding.

Characters Introduced

The main protagonist is introducing with the fact that the camera follows him out of the shop. There are no other characters introduced at first due to them tagging along during the film after the opening sequence. This is because the main protagonist is the main person in the film and is who we follow throughout the film.

Cinematography

The Mise-En-Scene for the opening sequence is shown when the camera follows the man outside of the shop. It shows us London in 2027 to which we see a more advanced country with moving adverts on buses and on buildings and different un-known shops except for seeing Halifax and WH Smith. The atmosphere outside and inside the coffee shop seems dull due to what’s happened with in the country and the news being shown all across London. This determines the negative and worthless atmosphere of the people around London. The reason for this is because it shows the audience the type of genre of the film and the setting, and what type of Mise-En-Scene to expect for the rest of the film.

Cameras/Editing

There are quite a few camera angles used, to name a few are wide shot, tracking shot and medium shot. They have used these certain angels and shots to show us detail of what the audience should expect. The first bit of the opening sequence we hear voice overs by two news reporters to which we believe something has occurred for this to happen. This is non-diegetic sound along with the sympathetic music with the news reporters voices to give the audience a sympathetic attitude.