Skyfall is an action adventure thriller starring Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem and Naomie Harris. In the opening sequence of this film it starts off with all the credits which do go on for quite a long time. The very first thing that happens is the camera focusing on the water. The camera starts of underwater so it is looking up like it is expecting something to happen. This is where we see that Daniel Craig falls into the water and begins to fall deeper and deeper. The title credits then appear with them being in white and appear in the centre of the screen on top of the water scene.
During the credits, Daniel Craig is one that appear on the screen. The Daniel Craig title appears on the right hand side of the screen and it appears just as Daniel Craig appear on screen falling deep into the water. The title appears at the side of his body.
The next credit title is the film title 'Skyfall'. The Skyfall title appears on the centre of the screen, again it appears on screen just as Daniel Craig falls deeper into the water. The title then starts to dissolve and completely dissolves of the screen.
The opening sequence has around 3 minutes worth of credit titles, each of which appear in different ways with different backgrounds.
Once all the credits are done, the opening scenes start to appear. The first opening scene is taken place in an old looking building or house. Firstly, we see Daniel Craig appear a the end of a corridor with no light on him whatsoever. This scene is very dark. The camera focuses on Daniel the whole time. Daniel Craig then begins to walk towards the camera while it is steady and only comes into focus when Daniel reaches the end. Again, this is a dark scene but a little spotlight appears on Daniels face as he reaches the camera. This shot is a close up.
As Daniel is standing in front of the camera, he lifts his left arm up which has a gun in it, so we now have a close up shot of his face, arm and a pointed gun. The camera then begins to move with Daniel as the scene changes to something else.
The next scene is where Daniel is in a room pointing a gun around, which the audience presume is for his safety. While this scene happens, the camera is behind him the whole time until the scene changes again. The camera follows Daniel throughout the rooms and focuses on each body they come across on the floor, again this is still a behind shot.
The dialogue starts once Daniel finds a man on a chair who is still alive but injured, we can see them talking to each other and what looks like, one of them is explaining something. This scene is again a dark lit scene with only a little bit of light coming from a small spot light lamp. This is suppose to give the dark and gloomy affect to fit in with what has just happened.
The next thing to happen is Daniel stands in a door frame with some kind of light coming from behind him in the distance; which he appears as a silhouette because he is in darkness and we can only see his body outline.
The camera work varies a lot in this opening sequence from small movements to actual camera angles. There are mid shots, close up shots and blurred shots all within the first 2 minutes of the film. There are behind shots when they are following Daniel through the house, there are close up shots when Daniel appears in front of the camera and the camera movements happen throughout when they are following through the building and focusing on different things.
There isn't much editing in this opening sequence as it is literally following through a building, however, there are edits when the credit titles happen as they are edited onto the screens and edited to blend in and blend out, for example, one of the titles disappears like running water of the screen. This is all edited to give the effect.
The sound is a very dramatic sound that can make the audience scared. The sound that is used builds up the tension for what is going to happen next. It wants the audience to think that something bad and big is going to happen.
Mise-en-scene consists of Lighting, costumes and props. The lighting is very dark in the opening scene as it suppose to make the audience tense and think that something bad and creepy is going to happen. There isn't much light at all in the opening, apart from when Daniel Craig exits the building and goes outside where the lighting becomes somewhat natural and much brighter. The costumes that we see are all business like outfits, like Daniel Craig always wears a suit. Having a suit on is the 'James Bond' trademark as by the end of it, there isn't a mark on him. It is to make the audience aware that he knows what he is doing. The props in this opening scene consist of a gun. This is about the only prop we see. The gun is to make the audience feel on the edge of their seats all the time as if he is going to use the gun to do something. It is making the scene believable and scary.
This opening sequence is the best one I have watched so far as there is more to it. It gives us more detail as to what is happening then any of the others I have researched. I can look more into detail at this clip and see what I can take from it to include in my own thriller opening sequence. I could also look at the editing, mise-en-scene, sound and camerawork to see how they are used and see if I could use any of the techniques.
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