Analysing Film Openings - Pirates of the Caribbean

Scene Summaries- Pirates of the Caribbean, the Curse of the Black Pearl

The film starts with a screen of the title of the film; Pirates of the Caribbean. The text is made by sparks of fire and turns gold on a black background. Non-diegetic music is played while this is happening, creating tension, as the music is a low spooky hum setting the atmosphere and the emotions for the audience for the first scene. The screen then fades to black and goes straight to an establishing shot of a misty sea. The establishing shot tells us where the scene is taking place, which in this case is the sea. A majestic boat then emerges from the mist slowly, creating a mysterious atmosphere.  The fact that the boat is so elaborately decorated suggests to the audience that the people on this boat are wealthy. The non-diegetic sound is carried on playing throughout the scene, underneath all the other sounds. All of a sudden we hear the diegetic sound of a girl singing a pirate song. As soon as we hear this sound the audience looks for the girl because at first you do not notice where she is. The camera films her by using the rule of thirds by keeping her on the left hand side of the boat, making the scene much more interesting. This effect makes the audiences attention focus on her, showing that she may have significance in the story. This is a sound motif, as we know that as she is singing a pirate song we know that she is going to have some sort of connection with the pirates. However the song is unexpected as her costume makes us judge her as an upper class girl as she looks like she is wearing an expensive garment, and pirates are associated with being unhygienic and shabby so this makes the audience ask themselves questions. Also pirates didn’t have such exquisitely decorated ships so we are left confused on whether she is a pirate or not.

We then go to a POV shot of the girl from behind, and the camera gets closer to her creating a ‘bomb under the table’ effect. We know something is going to happen, but we are left anticipating when it will happen. We are anxious and are left questioning who is approaching her, which creates an element of mystery. It then directly changes to a shot of the girl turning around and we see her scared expression preparing the audience too see something awful. Then the shot changes to show who was approaching her. The character shown shows the contrast between the wealthy people on the ship and the lower class people on the clip. The man who was approaching her looks dirty and his clothes aren’t as elegant as her. From his appearance we assume that he works on the ship. The element of actors in mise en scene comes into play here as you can see he has been casted in this role as he has an accent and uses colloquial language differentiating him from the other characters. Also he looks lower class, so the casting has made the character believable. The man tells her that pirate songs are ‘forbidden’ on the ship. This clears up for the audience that she is not a pirate, but then leads us to wonder why isn’t she allowed to sing pirate songs. We then see another contrast in casting and costume as two men; supposedly the owners of the ship appear on the screen. The clothes they are wearing notify us of the time period they are living in as people do not dress like that nowadays. It also creates a huge contrast between the other men who work on the ship as their costumes are pristine and smart.

Double entendre is used when one of the men who own the boat speaks to the girl about pirates. We as the audience know what he is speaking about when he says “Short drop, quick stop” and that is clarified when the man who works on the ship pretends to hang himself. This shows us the naivety of the girl, as she does not fully comprehend what is happening. This also tells us that the man doesn’t like pirates at all, which confuses us as the girl was singing a pirate song at the beginning.

The next shot creates a great mysterious feel to the shot. We see an umbrella floating along the sea alone. A shot is then taken from a low angle of the girls face. This shows her interest in the umbrella automatically making the audience interested in it.  The director used the rule of thirds and a POV shot for this part, as the umbrella floats to the right hand side of the screen and then out of the sight of the girl .This therefore makes the audience question where the umbrella has come from and where it has gone and leaves them completely oblivious to what happens next as the umbrella seems so harmless.  It makes them watch the shot differently because the umbrella was not directly in the middle third.

The next shot begins with a low angle shot of her shocked face. We do not know what she has seen making us feel anxious and making us wonder what she is seeing. A POV shot is then used to show us what she is seeing. The rule of thirds is used again in the same way the umbrella was filmed. We see a boy floating across the sea on a piece of debris. The POV shot used shows significance of his character and shocks the audience, as you wouldn’t expect to see that in the sea. The non-diegetic music becomes louder telling us how we should be feeling and setting the panicked atmosphere. Transparent editing is used as the camera goes to the boy in the water and the camera is half submerged in the water making the audience feel as if they are floating with him. As the waves lap against the camera, sound perspective is used as when the water covers the camera we hear the waves more loudly just as the boy would be hearing it. This makes the audience have a connection with the character and raises their concern for his safety as they now know what he is hearing and feeling, .The camera then goes back to show the girl emotions and shows her shouting. A group shot is then used of all the men panicking. The group shot is effective and shows that they are all feeling the same; panicked and worried. This leaves audience in question as we do not know what action they are going to take.

1)      The film starts with an establishing shot of the front of the ship and the sea. The establishing shot shows us where the scene will be taking place. This shot also shows us the immaculate golden decoration of the boat, suggesting it is owned by a rich person. Due to the mist we can only see a bit of the boat, making a tense atmosphere and creating a mysterious feel.

2)      In this shot we realise the little girl for the first time due to her singing. The rule of thirds is used as she is not in the middle third making the shot more interesting. By putting her on the left hand side of the screen makes the audience follow her singing voice to her making the audience watch the shot in a different way and drawing their attention to her.

3)      This is a POV shot of the girl from behind. The camera moves in closer to her creating the impression that someone is coming up behind her, making the audience tense and on the edge of their seat.

4)      This shot confirms that there is someone coming up behind her as we see the hand emerge from the front of the camera ready to grab the girl. We don’t see the identity of the person so we do not know what is going to happen and it makes the scene feel mysterious.

5)      This shot causes the audience to jump as the man grabs the girl by the shoulder and she gasps, making the audience think that something terrible is going to happen to her, but we then see who the man is who was approaching her; a man who works on the boat. His costume creates a large contrast to hers as her dress looks exquisite and pristine and he looks shabby and dirty. This shows us as the audience the divide between classes on the ship.

6)      This shot allows us to judge the character, as we haven’t had much of a chance to yet. Shallow focus is used to show what he is saying and what he is doing is significant. This tells the audience that he may be a significant character and makes us watch him more.

7)      This close up and shallow focus shot allows us to focus on her face to see how she is feeling. We can see she looks intrigued as she has seen something but we do not know what she has seen yet. This leads the audience to speculate. The use of shallow focus makes us focus on her and nothing else happening in the background or her surroundings.

8)      The rule of thirds is used in this shot at the umbrella does not appear straight away in the middle third, it appears on the left hand side and then floats down diagonally to the bottom right hand side. This makes the shot more interesting. Also the audience concentrates on the umbrella as you do not usually see an umbrella floating around in the sea, meaning something big is going to happen if there is one. Also it is the only thing floating around making us pay attention to the umbrella and nothing else around it as everything surrounding it looks dull in comparison.

9)      This shot is an example of transparent editing as it is almost as if the camera isn’t there. The water laps against the camera to make it look as if we are in the sea with him and it makes the scene and the situation look more realistic. In this shot sound perspective is used because we can hear the waves loudly when they move around and we can hear the sound of being submerged under water when the camera is covered by the waves.

Ideas

This sequence has a good moment in it where you make the audience jump even though nothing is really happening - the hand on the shoulder. We might be able to create a similar efect when the mother comes home.

This also reinforces the importance of music / non-diegetic sound in creating atmosphere.

This sequence shows that you can have quite a slow beginning with a lot of establishing shots and leave the sound to do the work of creating the atmosphere.

Different characters are established quite quickly and clearly here - we need to do the same wiht our characters so we will need some dialogue as this is the easiest way of establishing what characters are like.