Analysing Film Openings - Friends With Benefits

Friends with Benefits

The first two minutes in this film is fairly typical of an opening to a rom-com. The first thing the audience sees is the name of the production company and their logos. This is used purely for advertisement and to show the audience who produce the whole film. The first of the production slides is “Maxwell”. The production slide is used in the form of a presentation to fit in with the opening scene of the film.

The pace of the dialogue is fast, insinuating that the characters life style is very upbeat and busy. This is diegetic sound and this helps the audience connect with the characters. Also in the opening, there are two phone calls, and when watching it, it gives the impression that the two people are talking to each other, however you later find out that they are talking to two other people. These shots are done using close ups and over the shoulder shots looking down towards what is in front of them. These close ups tell the audience that these are vital characters and that they are important to the story line. It also tells the audience that they should focus on these characters as they will be appearing many times through-out the movie.

Editing is used heavily for the opening two minutes, mainly in the phone calls. As the intensity of the phone calls gets heavier, the pace of the cuts increases. There are many quick cuts used and the cross cutting helps switch between each person in both phone calls.

Non-diegetic sound is used to speed up the pace of the scene when the man is in the car on the way to the theatre to meet his girlfriend. The audience can clearly tell it is used to pick up the pace of the film as the music played is upbeat. The music is only played when the man is rushing on the way to the theatre but as soon as he arrives there, the music stops. This instantly slows down the pace and this is done purposely in the editing process of the film.

Elements of mise-en-scene show that the group shot is set in an office. You can tell this as the props used include computer screens, office chairs, file cabinets and work. Also, the actors are wearing clothes that are suited for an office. The panning shot also gives the impression that it is set in an office.

The opening two minutes of Friends with Benefits makes me want to carry on watching the film. The hierarchy of suspense and emotion built up in the first two minutes is on-going and this keeps the audience on the edge of their seats.

Although this is a different genre from our idea, we can still learn a lot from this. For example, the use of close ups to identify the key characters and the way non-diegetic music can tell the audience how to feel - these are all important things for us.