Planning: Film opening research: Sherlock Holmes Game of shadows

Sherlock Holmes Game of Shadows.

Director: Guy Ritchie
Cast: Robert downing jr and Jude law.

PG 13
Production: Warner bros
Gross: $186,830,669
Release date: 16 december 2011

Narrative
The scene starts with a man sat down writing out his thoughts as the voiceover projects the words he is putting on the typewriter into non diagetic sound for the audience to hear. The narrative shows the story of this man called Sherlock Holmes as the guy on the typewriter explains. The location is set in an old victorian street and the story follows this package after a huge bombing was shown. The package is then discreetly passed to another person obviously in exchange which was planned. The camera pans up to reveal a clearly important character holding the package. As she walks along she goes past an old man but the camera focuses on this old man on the bench and shows the audience he has importance in this scene. It then cuts to him grabbing different things from bags and walking towards the woman. The man links arms with the woman and both clearly know each other. Then the man pulls the woman to the side and explains there are three men following her as the camera focuses on the men following her.

Title
The title starts with very old fashioned paper as the background to give the audience a feeling that this film is set in the past and everything is old fashioned as the audience can tell this paper is pure white like it is today so immediately its established its set in the past. Another thing which strengthens this point is the fact that the idents for the production companies are drawn with ink so it strengthens this feel of old fashioned ink and paper that we had in the past. All of the production companies are shown in the order of importance in the titles as warner is considered the most important and then descends in its importance with the other film production companies.

Sound
The opening starts off with a non diagetic voiceover as the character who is typing is thinking the words he is typing to show the audience what he is typing on the typewriter to give a different way of telling the audience what it says instead of him saying it out loud or showing the text on the paper. A very classical score (non diagetic) is played as he is typing and talking and it makes the scene peaceful and calming until a huge explosion bursts out of this building and then the score is very tense and incidental music is played to give an action packed feel which causes the opening to pick up pace and everything becomes fast paced with the non diagetic incidental music. The voice of a newsreader sound bridges over to the next shot. Diagetic ambience is played to give more of a realistic street feel to the scene and everything becomes a lot more tense with more and more sound being played. As the camera rises to show this woman holding this package the incidental music rises to show the audience she is very important and possibly doing something bad. As she walks past an old man layed down the music drops and goes quiet showing a very mellow tone for this character showing that he is a good character and he is the person who will stop this potential threat. As the two characters exchange dialog the music stays at a quiet volume but still present to keep that tension. As he pulls her to the side the music drums loudly to give emphasis on the threat that is behind them.

Camera  
As the camera pans across these old books it focuses on this man typing and then cuts straight to a close up of the man showing his importance and shows he is the man doing the voiceover. The camera zooms out slowly keeping the shot static. It then cuts to the top of this building and pans down slowly showing exactly what the man is talking about. It cuts to a closer framing of the shot concentrating on the explosion coming from the doors. Cuts to a close up of a newspaper detailing the event and zooms out and when a mysterious figure passes the camera the camera hooks onto his movement and focuses on him walking through the street but always concentrating on the package. As its passed to another character the camera changes direction and moves backwards still concentrating on the package. The camera pans up to show a main character as it focuses in on her face for a while in a close up. As she passes an old man the camera fixes onto him for a while showing a long shot of this man. The camera cuts quickly between extreme close ups of different foods showing their importance as this man grabs handfuls of them. The camera cuts and pans following the woman and then cuts to an establishing shot of this market place to show exactly where the characters are. In an extreme long shot the woman comes into shot and walks towards the camera then cuts to a closer framing of the woman giving us a close up of the woman and the man walks into shot. The camera zooms out slightly but focuses on the two characters walking as they exchange dialog.

Atmosphere
The scenes in the first two minutes start from very slow and peaceful and them explodes into a face paced tense atmosphere setting the audience up for a roller coaster of feelings throughout the film going from slow to fast in seconds. The opening sets the audience up with an old fashioned Victorian setting due to location of the old dirty market place and the mise en scene of the costumes and props used in the opening as the old fashioned Victorian tweed and top hats show the audience immediately its Victorian times. The characters speak in an old accent too speaking very formally with no slang words like we use today yet the language is still differentiated between the lower classes like the newsreader andf the higher classes like the main woman character in this opening as the lower speaks very slang orientated but the higher speak very formally and posh.

Target audience
The target audience for this film would be for ages from 12 to 30. This is because younger kids would less likely find this film interesting as its meant for more mature yet still young audiences. The film would be ideal for Sherlock Holmes fans of course and the companies who made this film know that fans of Sherlock would enjoy this film and would want to watch it. Also this is a sequel so fans from the first film would want to see this film due to the first. Also another group of people who would want to watch this film would be fans of the actor Robert downing Junior as he has a very large fanbase so his fans would like to see him in this huge role.