ANALYSING AN OPENINING SCENE
I wanted to explore ways of showing the audience everything I wanted them to see within my opening scene. I wanted to know how to keep their interest, how to drop hints but not give everything away. I already knew lots of great opening scenes from many films and from all sorts of genre's, and one that I thought of first was from Golden Wind, a Japanese anime show about an Italian gang trying to take down the boss. I remembered that it's first scene, which introduced the main character and a primary setting was quick to make us aware of who he was and what he stands for as a character and where we were.
I pulled apart each shot and wrote a brief description about what happens - I will later explain how all of these shots contribute in making an effective opening scene.
- The peaceful music suggests that we are starting the story in a nice location.
- This allows us to quickly establish where we are.
Our focus is drawn to the man walking in the middle of the pavement.
- This character is distinguishable from the people around him due to his dress code.
- The is the main character, Giorno Giovanna
We continue to follow Giorno who we were focused on in the previous shot/
- Suggesting that this is the person we need to keep and eye on a he will most likely be important.
We acknowledge the setting more as we move further into the city.
- Moving into the shadows has symbolism telling us that there is something darker here that we are not seeing
- This is our first glimpse into the darker side of the city, showing us that it isn't as bright and beautiful as we thought it was.
We see the thief walking away as nobody does anything to stop him.
- Not even a heroic character when we might expect one to show up.
We cut to more crime as we see an exchange of money between two people.
- Something seems off as there is a clear difference in status. The clothing of the person on the right is clean and pristine and they are wearing a watch. Whilst the person on the left is wearing creased and ragged clothing. 
We cut back to seeing Giorno, who we were previously focused on. We see again that he ignores the crime that takes place right in front of him.
It is revealed that the exchange involved a dirty cop.
- Hinting at an injustice within the conflicted setting we have been presented with.
- This also gives us an idea of what kind of people live here.
- The city begins to grow darker with less lighting.
- The city starts to feel more compressed making the nice blue sky feel obsolete.
- The city is no longer as nice as it was upon our first impressions.
Giorno walks down a much darker, dirtier and narrow lane where he comes across two people. One person is dominant and the other is submissive, presenting us with power struggles.
- The darkness presents the true nature of the city.
- One of the two people is a child.
- Still, Giorno walks past, ignoring what is going on around him.
(However, this foreshadows his goals of becoming a gangster to control drugs and stop them falling into the hands of children)
We get a glimpse of Giorno as we follow him from behind. He looks back towards the shadow of the city as he walks into the light.
As Giorno reaches the bottom of the steps, there is another hint that suggests the involvement of drugs.
- Emphasizing the lack of justice and enforcement in the country we are in.
This provides symbolism, suggesting that Giorno wants to escape the darkness of the world he lives in.
- The way we follow him suggests that we will follow him as he strives to achieve his goal.
- This gives us a greater impression of where the story will take place as well as what kind of archetypical characters we will be following.
- We have seen glimpses of him every now and then, but not his whole face.
The anticipation is heightened as Giorno's face is teased even further.
Giorno is revealed to be a young man, more like a boy. Unlike a lot of the other people shown in the city, he seems to be kind and tells the ladies which way they are supposed to go.
- The time and anticipation spent waiting to see what Giorno looks like tells us that this is the main character we are going to be following.
We suddenly see a large man push one of the women and steal her purse out of her bag.
- We are once again returned to the harsh reality of Naples.
Slow-motion and blur line is repeated to continue the emphasized effect.
This line and Giorno's facial codes present us with a likeable gentleman type character.
The woman falls into Giorno's arms, he catches her as the larger man hides the purse.
- This presents Giorno as a typical savior of the 'damsel in distress' archetype.
- This also lets us know that the crime of Naples is still apparent in the brightness of day.
The woman's ice cream spills onto Giorno's sleeve, but instead of being bothered about it, he checks to see is she is okay first.
- This allows the audience to gain a better understanding of who he is.
- We can see that above all he is a kind person.
The woman apologizes to the large man.
- This small gesture tells us that the criminals of Naples are intimidating.
Giorno notices that the large man has snatched the woman's purse.
The shot becomes slow-motion with a blur-line animated effect, causing a greater effect and emotional response from the audience.
- We acknowledge that he has become accustomed to this way of surviving (Instinct).
The swift way that Giorno snatches the purse back further suggests his accustomed survival instincts.
Giorno having taken the purse back for the woman hands it over.
- Despite the fact that he could have taken it for himself, he hands it back, making Giorno a likable person.
- This helps the audience familiarize themselves with the character they are going to be following throughout the series.
The butterflies fly away as the women think nothing of it.
The two women walk away, praising Giorno, who remains in the background letting us know that we will be seeing him again.
We are immediately curious as we see two butterflies come out of the woman's bag.
- However, the audience is more engaged as they are left wondering what the butterflies are and where they are going.
We watch as the butterflies flutter across the scene and land on Giorno's shoulder.
The audience who are thinking little of it watch as he grabs hold of the butterflies...
Giorno saying this line shows the audience his true character, he is a survivor and will do what he has to stay alive.
Giorno notices something that we cant see, the audience doesn't know what to expect.
… and morphs them into money.
However, since Giorno has just betrayed the audience's trust he makes himself a character who will be hard to love at times.
The 'hard to love' element of his character is shown again as he easily dismisses stealing from the woman he helped earlier.
We are presented with Ice Cream/Gelato, which is used to make the audience accustom to Italy as it is where we will be exploring.
More exposure to Italian culture and food.
The quick moment of Giorno seeing and buying a young child ice-cream leaves the audience conflicted about him. He is a kind and heartwarming person but also a survivor, someone like this has their reasons for doing what they do, but we wonder if it makes it justifiable.
- Building up conflict in his characterization.
Giorno look into the brightness again, solidifying his goal of leaving the darkness and taking over to make a change for the better.
[Title]
The title flows in the wind looking up at the sky foreshadowing a change to come, for the better.
What did I take from this opening scene?
In order to take things away from this opening scene, I needed to look at what the basic requirements of an opening scene was.
An average opening scene needs to establish the Themes, Characters and Settings (Worldbuilding), but most importantly, it needs to Hook the audience. An opening should be done quickly in a short amount of time, too long and it will be boring, so how can an opening effectively tell the audience everything they need to know.
The opening of Golden Wind is able to do this by taking the main character on a walk through a key setting. Whilst the rest of Italy is used throughout the 39 episodes, Naples is where we start and it is where we meet key characters that play large roles throughout the rest of the series.
Themes:
Within the opening we are presented with multiple themes that solidify Golden Wind as a Crime/Adventure series. We immediately explore the themes of crime (drugs, theft), police, gangs and survival, whilst there are more, these are the key themes explored. They are mainly presented with the use of the people living within the city of Naples.
Setting:
Naples is shown as the kind of place someone might describe as two sides of the same coin. It is shown as a historical and beautiful coastal city. However, it presents itself with a dark side as within the shadows of the city lie criminals, dirty cops and drugs. This is used to full effect throughout the story, so laying the groundworks within this opening will prove to be effective both now and later on.
Character - Giorno Giovanna:
The theme of survival is present because of the characters, for instance, Giorno Giovanna. Giorno is a character who we quickly come to know by the end of the opening scene, as we follow him walking through Naples, ignoring crime and death around him until he uses that crime to his benefit, stealing money from a woman. However, at this point we might think that he is just another criminal stealing and taking advantage of people, but when we see him buying ice-cream for the hungry looking child in front of him, we are conflicted. We feel this way because we are unsure about Giorno's selective justice whilst he remains a gentleman.
What I took away was the art of showing and not telling, we see this throughout the clip, and it is effective at making us see what the director wanted us to see and understand. We know that Giorno is a survivor, but we also know that he is kind. We know that Italy is a beautiful place, but we also know that it has a dark underbelly of crime.
This is effective because we are intrigued as to where the story will take Giorno Giovanna as he aims to become a mafioso to eliminate drugs from reaching the hands on children.
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