Analysing Opening Sequences - Bridget Jones' Diary

Scene Summaries – Bridget Jones

 Before we visually see the start of the scene we hear a voiceover from who we can gather is Bridget Jones with non-diegetic calm music playing beneath. Her humour starts the audience on a positive note as she seems to be a bubbly character before we even see and judge her.

 We then see Bridget in a winter scene, unsurprising because she said in the voiceover it’s Christmas, in a mid-shot showing herself as well as the setting she is in, she looks cold and fed up which is funny and hugely stereotypical of a woman.

 The music used describes Bridget as it is different and funny, we get the impression she is like the music due to her characteristics such as sarcasm and humour. The next shot is establishing showing a cute village, possibly her mums as she talks about it n the voice over. The setting seems like a nice, delightful village due to the size of the neighbourhood and the church connotes innocence to the people of the village, perhaps not where Bridget fits in.

 We then have an exchange between Bridget and her mother. The mise-enscene is comical because Bridget’s mother is perfect for the mother role, she is different to Bridget looks and personality wise and persistently carries on bothering Bridget about meeting a guy. She has a house that we’d expect to see in that certain village and fills in all the stereotypical mum quotes. This then brings understanding of what Bridget was talking about in the scene before.

 We then get a close up on Bridget’s mum’s face, her hair and clothing is motherly like as well as her expressions. She nags at Bridget which she thinks is best for her.

We then find Bridget storming up the stairs from a high angle showing her and her mother’s emotion and expressions. This brings humour into the scene again as they have just seen each other and there is nagging and annoyance already happening between the two of them.

 As Bridget walks into the next room she is greeted by her uncle, this includes a number of shots from , two shots, POV and close ups. She feels uncomfortable with her uncle and makes it entertaining to watch with her voiceover which is the thoughts in her head.

 The editing between scenes is seen as quite natural and smooth as the film is trying to be perceived as ‘real’ life situation.

 There were 4 starting credits before the film started which took up a bit of time but the start of the film linked into it smoothly.

The universal logo is when Bridget starts her voice over.

This mid-shot shows the setting Bridget is in and herself as well as the way she dresses.

 

That scene then fades into the establishing shot of the village her mum lives in to show how it doesn’t suit Bridget and also to show what type of woman her mum is.

We then see another establishing shot of her mum’s house which is perfect, another contrast to Bridget.

We then see shot / reverse shot editing between Bridget and her mother as well as a two shot showing their relationship and reactions towards one another’s comments.

Next is a close up of Bridget’s mum we see her facial expression after Bridget says something to her. We also get a closer look into what she’s wearing and how perfectly made up she is compared to Bridget.

The high angle stair shot is clever as it shows Bridget’s action as well as both her and her mother’s facial expressions which seems to be already fed up with each other, it also gives us a setting of her mum’s home.

We then have a POV close up of ‘Uncle Jeffery’ to show his reaction to seeing Bridget. Bridget then commentates humorously in her thoughts what she thinks of him.

We then have a two shot and a close up on Bridget’s face of them kissing where she doesn’t feel overly happy he’s seen her due to her avoided kiss and awkward smiling.

 

 Another two shot to show the type of relationship she is used too but doesn’t feel comfortable with as she tries to avoid him. The relationship is awkward.

 

We are still deciding our genre and are torn between thriller/horror and rom-com. This research is making me decide that thriller might be better. I enjoyed this sequence and think it is good, but I also think that comedy is harder for us to achieve. I think the acting has to be very good to create humour and it is easy for comedy to fall flat.