Analysis of Opening scene of The Shining.

This clip is the opening scene of the film The Shining which was released in 1980; it was directed by Stanley Kubrick.

The sound in the opening scene of The Shining is a slow moving, low pitched extra diegetic sound. No dialogue is included in the first scene of the film, this has an impact on the viewer, because they do not, as of yet, really understand what is going on. Only the image in their mind can be enough for them at this stage. The impact of the extra diegetic sound increases the impact of the director not adding any dialogue, because it adds the tension on top of the scene.

The lighting throughout the clip is naturalistic and is generated straight through the sun, it seems as though it is an early morning sun, this makes the whole scene seem soft and cosy. The slight mist throughout the clip makes the lighting seem even more natural, it also makes the scene seem more realistic to the audience. The impact of this lighting could make the audience unaware of what may happen. It may also confuse them due to the mixture of sound and lighting, the soft lighting and low pitched sound are not expected together as the sound does not seem natural in the scene.

The main camera angle used throughout the clip is an establishing shot, which is a wide tracking shot. The camera tracks the road/car all through the clip, which shows to the audience that this particular car and/or road are of high importance at the very beginning of the film. The impact of this shot used throughout the opening scene, is it creates suspense because the audience are still hidden from what could really happen in the next few moments of the film.

The setting of the opening scene is very realistic and looks like a real location. It is set in the mountain tops, or maybe even the countryside near a very large lake. It gives the whole scene suspense because the audience may not necessarily have any idea where it could be, or what is due to happen after the tracking of the car/road. Again, this setting does not particularly match the sound used, as the scene is very natural and realistic, whereas the sound included is very low pitched and extra diegetic. This creates suspense due to the whole scene being quite odd and unusual.