The Day After Tomorrow’, Film Opening Analysis.

The film opens with the “20^th Century Fox normal opening. This is a well-known company which is recognisable by any audience. The short clip has an alternative ending; it ends with a storm beginning behind the logo. There is lightening and sound effects of that as the logo fades out. This suggests what is going to happen at some point in the film and intrigues the audience watching.

The film begins with an arial shot of an ocean (not sure which one) the camera moves along the ocean only looking down on it,  clumps of ice begin to appear and they get bigger and bigger until icebergs appear. Finally the camera continues until giant glaciers are in the shot and the ocean disappears as we as the audience moves onto land. From what I can gather the camera is on a helicopter.  The credits have been rolling in since the start, this makes this scene seem less important if it’s got writing all over it, it’s done well though and is not distracting. The music starts to build as more of the scenery comes into shot; the camera is positioned less of a birds-eye-view now and more establishing. You can see the vast stretch of ice and snow with mountains in the background it is a beautiful landscape that will keep them captivated and draw them in. The camera then pans round and you can see a group of people. It then cuts to a close up shot of the American flag.
These two shots tell us a lot about the film. Firstly, that it’s either Americans that are out in the cold or that’s where the rest of the film is going to be set… or both? It’s also an introduction to some characters, normally the characters that are in the first few scenes are the main ones.
From the first few minutes (3) you can’t really tell what the genre is and the characters are only just introduced.