The Dark Knight, does not feature any titles in the opening sequence apart from production / producer logos (Warner Bro’s, Legendary Pictures and DC Comics) the film instead dives into a smoke or cloud even, of dark blue and black, vaguely shaping the batman symbol, connotation the film; as it will be recognisable due to Batman being renown. The blue at first connotates both of these quotations:
‘’ Blue is a masculine color; according to studies, it is highly accepted among males. Dark blue is associated with depth, expertise, and stability; it is a preferred color for corporate America.’’
And
‘’ Dark blue represents knowledge, power, integrity, and seriousness.’’
Clearly, the opening title, simple and sweet, sets out to capture the intention of exhibiting ‘knowledge, power, integrity, and seriousness’; all the elements of this film genre, before divulging into the actual film. 00:48 secs.
Sound gradually fades in from 00:48 – 00:55, when a ‘boom’ like sound allows the first clip of the film to burst in, creating the seriousness transition. The sound used will be incidental / theme and the ticking in the background suggests the urgency of time (the added atmosphere genres a tense tone) – highlighting the seriousness of the clip straight away.
00:55
The first shot taken is an establishment shot which is slightly a high angle shot; though it is on level with the dark, short building above the cream coloured buildings. The eye is drawn to this building and as the shot zooms in, it also creates an establishment of the location: the audience learns the location, time of day (sunlight).
01:12-01:13
An action match is used as the window is shot out with a gun. Straight away the genre is addressed as the reader can learn this is a crime / thriller based film as it comes the expectancy, due to the established surroundings, that men in masks are ‘dangerous antagonists’.
01:20
The shots change quickly. When combined with the incidental music, it further creates the addressed urgency of time, but also the action within the opening sequence as multiple shots are needed to establish what the two men (shown by a two shot high angle) are doing. The use of a high angle suggests that they are in some way powerless; already being presumed to be antagonists by the use of weaponry, masks and dark clothing – these men are established into a crime social group immediately – though the shot imposes that neither of them have a great deal of power. This reflects the ideaology that criminals are ‘low lives’ that are worth nothing, hence why they commit crimes.
01:24
Again the shot type changes quickly as to keep with the time frame of the opening and the serious situation. In this shot, it is a level, slightly long shot which zooms in closer onto the back of the man and the mask; this shot also establishes the street which he is looking onto. That he wears black clothing suggests depth and generally conotates something as being bad. The viewer is quick to notice the white mask which stands out against the black clothing; the viewer is immediately formalized with the situation that this character too is an antagonist (again being unable to see the face). Quickly, a car drives up once zoomed into onto the mask and the man bursts into this action as the car breaks fast. At 01:34 the shot changes again to create an action match (slightly pulled from time frame) of the antagonists at the window. The audience is unable to see details of these characters, and from lighting, can only see the character as a dark figure; again conotating dark. The shot quickly changes at 01:36 and again at 01:37 to show the action match of the two zip lining to another building.
The shot follows from a low angle shot, though on the eye level of the characters, it is still considerably a high angle shot. The camera quickly dollys over the edge of the window, revealing a high shot of the street, representing the danger of the situation and the intensity of the city. The shot after is a very long high angle shot, still representing the two antagonists as ‘low life’ because they are criminals – they do not contain any power, yet (the shot also pans right, tracking the two to show fluent motion). Another action match shot is taken again, but from a slight low angle of when the two land on the roof. The sound from when the zip line shot grows tense and increases, becoming louder and hosting more dramatic drum beats, following the suspense of these characters.
From here up until 2 minutes, the scene follows in the car. From the back shot from inside the car, it establishes the three characters, making them look dark and mysterious; because the shot is taken from an eye level angel, the darkness in this shot as previously demonstrates their antagonist motives, but now establishes some power also. It is not until this point that dialogue is used, even so, it is short, intense, snappy and only gives half information, apart from ‘three of a kind, let’s do this’. From The angle of the camera, it’s focal point is of the antagonist in the back seat, loading a gun, this shot is to establish that these characters are again dangerous. ‘Every guy gets a share –‘ leads onto the two mid shot (minese the back seat character who is now out of focus point) to show the individuality in each of these characters due to decoration of mask. The character in focus is again dressed in dark, whilst the one driving is dressed in dark blue, as he is the one explaining the situation, this exhibits intelligence (connotation). From this shot also, for a brief moment the character in focus brings up his gun, because the weapons are only shown for brief periods of time, it allows the audience to crave more and creates suspense and tension.
Until this point, shots change quickly, mostly using jump shots.
- Sound is used to create suspense
- High angle shots are used to demonstrate antagonists as weak characters (despite connotations of colour e.g. black can represent power)
- Colour connotation is important to represent characters when the audience cannot see entire body, mise en scene.
