"Breaking Dawn Part 2" Opening Sequence

This is the opening sequence Breaking Dawn Part 2" from the Twilight series. I don't particularly like this opening sequence as I found it dragged on a little, however there were elements that I really liked and will take inspiration for my own film opening.

Each shot is wide and establishes the surrounding. The use of the wide angle really highlights its vast emptiness. The camera appears as if it's flying over all this landscape, as an audience we feel like we are the camera, it acting as a point of view shot, and we feel like we are flying over everything. When it gets to intense shots, the ones revolving around her eyes, it is an extreme close up showing us the fine detail. It's quite gruesome.

There is one backing track played over the entire sequence but the impression it gives off at the different points vary massively. At points the music is slow and quite inspirational, matched with the slow shots it’s almost forcing us to reflect. The music then becomes really intense when there are closer up shots and it sounds very majestic and grand, like something truly phenomenal is happening. Three quarters of the way through sound effects are introduced, the sound of the wold howling, the wind whistling, and the crunchy snow. This brings the scene back to reality and where we've felt like we've been flying objectively over everything, we are now part of the scene. At the end there is one synchronous sound used as Bella opens her eyes, a high pitched "ting" is heard. It sounds innocent and pure which contrasts her character of a vampire.

This follows the typical written codes of moving image, and has the logo and film company introduced as well as actors, producers, directors and many others. The appearance of a single name at a time meant it wasn't too overwhelming for the audience and we could see each name and get excited about the stars in advance.

The most significant part of this opening clip, in my opinion, was the symbolism used. The whole thing was focused around two colours-red and white. These both are hugely contrasting in terms of connotations, white representing purity and innocence and red being a sign of danger and pain. It's hugely representative of the main theme and concept of the story, the fight between right and wrong, safety and danger. The locations were often red, with snow being a common symbol throughout again representing the idea of innocence being taken over by evil.

I liked elements of this clip, and thought as a title sequence it was quite effective, but I will not be doing a similar one for my own. I think it was quite long and didn't introduce any action or any real hints about the story (apart from right at the very end).