Nine Frame Analysis of the Opening Scene of 'Public Enemies'

In the first frame of the film the focus is on the prisoner's feet marching. This appealed to me as I had originally liked the idea of opening my film with the focus on somebody's feet walking. The screen is black for a few seconds and we can hear the sound of the marching feet before the picture comes to the screen. I find this effective as it draws us into the story.

The shot then changes to the hands of the prisoners, we still do not see their faces in the shot, this helps us to question who is being arrested, possibly. Or the fact that we cannot see the faces of the people reflects how they are not seen as people. They are all dressed the same, in the same position and doing the same thing. The only thing that defines them as individuals is their face and this is the very thing that is hidden from the audience.

We now see the backs of the heads of the marching prisoners. Not quite their faces, but it allows us to slowly be brought into them. We can see the divestiy of people being arrested, age and race varying. This shot also allows us to get our first glimpse of the surroundings. All of the previous shots are fairly close up, whereas now we are very subtly easing out of the close up shots. This allows us to see the bigger picture and lets us discover more about the story we have been thrown into.

At this point we finally see the faces of the prisoners marching by. The camera angle has changed, and the shot is still close up. The focus throughout all of the frames so far has been wholley on the prisoners, nothing else. Their expressions are firm and so far no music has been played in the film. Music could have had a large impact and influence on how we view the prisoners at this point in the film. If sad music was played, we may feel empathy or sympathy for them, perhaps leading us to thing they are not deserving their sentence. If menacing, dark music had been playing we would perhaps think these people were evil and deserved the treatment they were getting. As there is no music we cannot help but to take a neutral standpoint on the prisoners, and as we see later on in the film, this is for a good reason.

We now have our first shot that is not purely focused on the prisoners. A guard is watching them pass by, and the shot previous to this one could have been following his eyeline to what he was seeing as the angle of the prisoners walking by matches the position he is standing in beside them. The shots are still close ups, not allowing us much scope to see the conditions or setting, although from the people we have seen we are lead to believe it is a prison. This is interesting, as we are told the surroundings not by being shown a large prison building, but by seeing the people, what they are wearing and the way in which they behave.

A wider shot now allows us to see a fallen prisoner, this is a short, yet powerful shot. It can tell us much about what the prisoners are going through and the conditions. It is quite amazing how such a short shot can tell us so much. We also see that nobody is paying any attention to this fallen prisoner. The prisoners marching do not appear to be even looking at him, and the guards are paying no attention to him, either.

The shot remains wide, showing us the sheer size of the surroundings. The people seem swallowed up by the building around them, this shot seems to reflect the power of the prison itself. The shot shows how powerless the people look in comparison to the huge towering walls. This may help us to understand how the prisoners feel, they were once in power over others when commiting crimes, but now they are powerless under the iron fist of the law in the prison.

We then return to a cluse up shot of the hands of the prisoners. Once again I feel that if music were used this could create a strong feeling of how we view these people. Hands can show a huge amount of emotion. This image could show the weakness of the prisoners, or it could show their anger and how they wish to break free again.

Again we see the prisoners walking away from us. Although not a huge amount happens in these first nine frames, no words, no music, all we see is the prisoners walking by us and all we hear are their footsteps. This film opening is simple, but I feel it holds a vast amount of power and the mood can be influenced so much by very small and subtle changes. Many close-ups are used and I feel this is effective as the audience is kept in the dark to a certain degree as to what is going on and where the story is taking place. I would like to try to use some of these techniques in my own film opening.