Analysing Film Openings - Green Street

Scene Summaries- Green Street First 2 Minutes

The start of the film shows us an establishing shot of the location which is a train station. The lighting used is grey and dark telling us that the films more likely to be serious and not comedic.

 

 

After this we see the camera using a low angle on the floor looking up to the stairs.

 

 

There is the use of sound perspective because we can hear the boys chanting get louder as they come up the stairs and into view. The use of the low angle shows us the power of the boys and clearly gives them a high status. The song they are singing is a song about West Ham telling us that the film is about football.

The first to emerge from the stairs is Pete, this shows us that he is clearly a main character. Next there is the use of a close up of a tin can which Pete kicks about. This clearly is an important reference suggesting  that the film may have something to do with football, but also connecting it with alcohol. A P.O.V  is used from the other side of the platform to show people are there.

 

 

The camera turns around to an over-the-shoulder shot from and we see a group of boys similar in size. From the dialogue we find out they are Tottenham supporters and the boys don’t like each other. This suggests the film is about football hooligans.

 A train arrives at the platform splitting up the boys, from this we get a P.O.V shot from Pete looking through the train window while it’s moving.

 

 

This creates a disorientating effect and gets us ready for the scene coming up. Adding to this the camera swings up losing focus as if falling down which adds to the feeling of disorientation and goes straight into the next scene where we see Pete push one of the boys onto a post box and attack him. A low angle looking up is used to hide the man so we don’t actually see impact as that would be hard to film.

 

 

There are many fast cuts and the camera is shot as if it was in the fray. This helps the audience feel as if they were there, making it seem more real. There are a lot of close ups to show the facial expressions of the boys plus the punches. This helps us see the anger on their faces. Last scene in the 2 minutes is Pete putting someone’s head through a window. The camera is behind the glass so we can clearly see his head come through. This helps the audience to feel the feel the impact. Then there is a cut to black. This may be used to let the audience soak up the scene which had a lot in and was quite short.

We are planning a tense opening to our film so there is a lot to learn from this. In particular I think we need to look at how to disorientate our audienc through clever use of the camera.