Film Openings - Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix (Media Language) // Research

The opening scene fades into an extra long shot of the Warner Bros. Pictures ident approaching the camera. This is slowly followed by the title of the film coming towards the camera in the same way. At 0:37 an extra long shot of a moon is shown and by 0:39 graphic match is used and the moon becomes the sun. This gradually tilts down to reveal an extra long, high angle shot of a large area of houses. This continues to tilt down and becomes a birds eye view shot of a park in a field by 0:58.This already gives the audience a feel as if someone higher up or from a different place is watching the people in the park.

After this a medium, camera angle shot of a field is shown which partly tracks people in the background walking along. This is followed by a dissolve transition which shows a medium shot of a shadow from someone sitting down. This tells the audience how someone is generally sitting down and probably thinking about lots of things in general. The medium close up at 1:20 reveals the character sitting down (Harry Potter) to us and from the serious look on his face you can see how he is thinking. Having a medium close up is the best shot for this as it isn't too close but it's close enough for the audience to see his facial expression clearly.

Various shots including close ups, long shots, point of view shots are used. As well as this shot reverse shot is used. A detailed account of these shots and when they come in can be seen on the edit timeline I drew in a slightly later post. Having a variety of all these shots is good as it makes the opening seem more interesting and gives the audience a variety of different things to focus on to reveal a narrative.

The opening scene ends with a medium shots that tracks the unusual being getting away quickly at the end of the scene. By quickly tracking this being it shows where it is going and is effective as it makes the audience feel as though they are more in the action of the shot and feel more involved, therefore being more engaged.