Extended notes on the opening to the film Marnie

Extended notes on the opening to the film

Marnie.

• Firstly, the film starts off with the production company logos
• As the film begins the beginning titles and company logos are shown through the use of visual effect, in this case the use of turning pages of a book gives the viewer the hint that this story is based on a novel.
• The use of pragmatic music builds suspense with short bursts of orchestral violins.
• This pragmatic music calms when the actual title of the film is shown then picks up and calms again, this is continued for a while to build tension.
• suddenly, all music stops and the film picture begins. From this point onward there is only diegetic sound coming from the actions seen on screen.
• This diegetic sound is begun with the sound of high heels from a woman walking. This sound also gives us the idea that this woman is all on her own seeing as though there are no other noises to be heard from all around.
• In the next shot we can see everything in the scene, giving  us a full view of the mise en scene.
• The use of the hand bag prop tells us that it is a significant object in the scene. This significance is emphasised from the visible bright yellow colour of  the bag, and the tight grasp the woman has over the bag she's carrying.
• We know that the character visible to the audience is a woman from the clothing e.g. the hat, coat and also judging by the sound her high heels.
• The camera movement is also a key element to drawing attention to the woman and the bag e.g. using tracking to follow the woman/bag tightly and then slowly stopping to allow her to get further ahead and to show some of her surroundings for and establishing shot.
• The establishing shot shows us that this character is in a train station in the city. we know that she is in the city because of the gas shutter clearly visible in the background that would be found commonly in large community's, in this case the city. Also this shot has converging lines to aid with drawing the viewers eye to the woman slowly walking away from the camera. furthermore, we could also determine the weather and maybe even the season of which this scene is set, we can do this by looking at her clothing, she is wearing a tweed coat and scarf which are tell-tale signs that the weather is cold, meaning it could be Autumn/Winter time.
• The woman looks to be going somewhere at this point as she stops and puts down a suit case and is waiting at the train station.
• At this point the scene changes to a man behind a desk pointing at an empty safe that has been robbed of the money inside. This then gives the audience an idea of what could be in the woman's yellow bag from the first scene and that she stole it from him.
• There is then a cut scene to the empty safe with an eye line match to the office man behind the desk.
• The next scene show us that the office man is talking to two policemen and his secretary in the background. We can easily see from this scene the significance of each of these characters e.g. the most important person is the older policeman who is centred in the shot and also the one speaking to the office man. The younger policeman is less important than the first policeman as all he is doing is taking notes. And last but not least the secretary in the background is most insignificant to the scene as she has been pushed to one side out of the way.
• As the office man is  talking to the police he tells them the name of the culprit, Marianne Holland, knowing who she is. While doing this he repeats the name of the woman three times. by doing this he is addressing the audience directly making sure they know that its a woman that stole the money and to apply a name to the female character from the first scene (even though we do not see her face). Also his description of the woman who stole the money to the police suggests that him and her had some form of relationship or that he has (had) some form of crush on her.
• During these conversations, there has been use of a shot reverse shot format (which is often used for dialogue).
• Also there's use of a close up shot on the office mans face to show his facial expressions when a taller man enters the room and the eye line match of the office man looking up at him.
• When the office man walks across the room to talk to the taller man the camera pans across the room following his as he goes.
• As the office man talks to the taller man there is clear use of visual hierarchy which makes the taller man look more important and the short office man more insignificant, this is shown by their sizes being big and small and also by the taller mans attitude toward the office man as he doesn't look at him that often and looks around the room checking out what's going on.