Friday, 11 November 2011

Never Back Down Opening Sequence Analysis


Never Back Down was released on March 14th 2008 starring Sean Faris, Amber Heard, Eddie Hannush, Cam Gigandet and Dijmon Hounsou. It is an American action film - thus, even before watching the film, I already have assumptions of the typical conventions that I would expect
to be seeing in the opening sequence. This includes things like; fighting, dark colours, fast pace, etc. This movie was substantially popular with teenagers and young adults. The fact that the storyline is to do with achieving your goals, this appeals to this audience most as they can all relate to it. 
Although this is 10 minutes long, I will only be analysing the first 2 minutes and 23 seconds. It starts off with a fast tempo, tensed piece of soundtrack in the background - this starts to occur just before the credits. This immediately gets the audience weary (emphasising on the genre). The weather conditions are rainy, which created the mood for the audience. Rain is very commonly used in movies when a negative scene is being shown. The rain made the atmosphere very intense which enhanced the concentration of the rugby match for the audience. The fact that it started with this game (battle), made it highly conventional. All the main characters are students, making it relatable for the targeted audience - young adults/teenagers. The main 2 characters were evidently portrayed within the first 2 minutes as the commentator mentioned their names repetitively (Jake Tyler and Ryan McCarthy). These 2 characters were consistently being the centre of attention in the camera shots. There was a wide variety and a high quantity of camera angles/shots used (close-ups, extreme wide shot, over-the-shoulder shot, etc.), each lasting for a very short amount of time making it difficult to capture each one. This kept the pace moving fast - another factor which set the mood. 

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