Analysing Opening Scenes - Action

Law Abiding Citizen:
The main character, plyed by Gerard Butler, after seeing his wife and daughter killed infront of him, he decides to take justice into his own hands. He decides to kill the people resposible for their death, as well as a district attornyinvolved in the deal. The twist in this story is he does it all from inside his jail cell.
The first bit of this clip shows the credits in a stone like font and a scratched away effect, like it has erdoded away over time, this is relevent to the film because as you find out through the feel he has spent alot of time creating a plan of revange. Also digging the tunnels is involved in the film, helping to contribute to the eroded effect.
The film begins with happy music and close up of both gerard and his daughters activities. Due to it being filmed as an extreme close up, this could represent the relationship between them both as being close.

Next the colours of all the littles girls toys represent the innocence and shes in the light whereas her dad played by Gerard Butler is in the darker area and his equipment for soldering is grey.

This is then followed by both characters talking with the camera moving in shot reverse shot as they talk together, making it more realistic they are having a realistic conversation.

However this is soon interupted by a loud knocking on the door. The knock on the door is enhanced so it is louder for the audience to recognise, and makes it the audience expect something to happen.

When Gerard moves upstairs to answer the loud knocking on the door, the interior of the house is painted in yellows and uses bright colours suggesting happiness and there a good family, however outside it is night time, and this is where the thugs (bad guys come from).

As soon as the thugs are inside the house and begin to beat up and assault Gerard Butler, tense music begins to play over the top of the scene. Sound effects, such as smashing and the previous knocking are added in to make the scene be more realistic, as well as sound more violent. Next the sound begins to echo and the picture jump cuts quick to make the scene seem more dramatic and the sound makes it seem as if the characters are hurt, low on energy and passing out.

Finally, eventhough the opening scene does not tell the full story, the film explains itself as it goes along. This technique jelps to keep the audience interested, for example in this scene the audience doesn't know why the thugs are after Gerard and killing his family. Eventhough nothing much happened in the begining clip, the sound and music helps to add effect and contributes to the film getting stright into the story.