Film Opening Analysis and AOTT Research (DYM)

  Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

• Genre: action, adventure, drama.
• The story takes place in medieval times- seen through the armor and swords in the title sequence and the time scale is a few weeks.
• Images of a medieval soldiers are mixed with a crow, a red dress, glass breaking and fire in the background. The order of events is not very significant to the story telling as it only shows certain aspects that occur at different points throughout out the film. For example, the battles take place at both the beginning and the end but the breaking glass is only seen towards the end of the film. 
• The events seem unconnected but the dark colour scheme links them together.
• No distinct characters are introduced but the idea of a male soldier and maybe a rich female woman are seen through the armor and the red dress.
• Not much story information is revealed to the audience as the events that are happening in the sequence are not very clear. For example, it implies that there is a battle but the importance of the crow, glass and dress are unknown but maybe deliberately withheld.
• At the start of this film I think that the audience needs to know or at least see more of Snow White to understand why the battle is seen and why the colour scheme is so dark and mysterious. Perhaps the huntsman could be eluded to as it is not clear if the soldier in the sequence is him or not.

Up (2009)

A very contrasting film opening to Snow White and the Huntsman is Up. It contrasts Snow White in the sense that the main characters are clearly seen because through the scrapbook effect we learn a lot about their personalities and things they do together. Another contrast is the type of music Up using a very upbeat, catchy orchestral piece whereas Snow white had a dark mysterious song my a female rock singer. Another difference is the pace of the opening with Up being quite fast and Snow White being slow.

The openings are similar because they have the titles incorporated into the action. 

The techniques that have been used in Up to communicate film information is the use of snapshots/stills and in Snow White symbolic images have been used such as the breaking glass and crow. 

The aesthetic style of Up is animated, bright/colourful with wide shots and close ups in the snapshots. On the other hand, Snow White is very metallic, masculine and dark with closeups and fade ups and downs.