Film Opening Analysis #2 - The Taking of Pelham 123

This film opening of The Taking of Pelham 123 is a stylized edit as it consists of a lot of heavy editing,

Camera:

 The opening starts of with a pan of a city skyscrapers as well as a high angle view of pedestrians in the the city.  The audience also gets a close up of some possible characters in the film, although they are not introduced properly, the audience is left curious about who they are. There is also some back shots of characters in the opening.


Editing:

Cross Cut of Sign

Plain Text with Transition

Radiant text/Yellow T

This opening is enriched with editing as it consists of speeding up, radiant text complex transitions and a bunch of cuts. The transitions are the first type of editing we see, the transitions are used with the text credits. Once all the important credits are passed, there is a huge shift in pace and the opening is sped up. The text of the credits is also changed from plain to a radiant text. This creates an upbeat and jumpy feeling for the audience. Throughout the opening there are lot of cross cuts and jump cuts of objects, signs and characters. There is also the use of ellipsis which is used to with individuals in the opening to speed up time.

Mise en Scene:
 The location is set by the opening of the city and tall skyscrapers and the audience is able to identify it is New York. Also the Yellow taxis and subway also play a part in it's identification. When we see the individuals that seem like key characters, we associate them with being ominous and bad as the costume and body language highlight our assumptions.

Sound:
The opening of this film starts off with a calm and controlled sounds however once the pace of the opening is changed, the music changes into an upbeat and jumpy song which is parallel to the editing of the opening. Also you get sounds from a car horn, a train, a laser sound and swoosh sounds.