Skyfall (2012) Film Analysis

Skyfall (2012) Film Opening Title Sequence

From what we can see from the film opening we can see that the film is a mix of action and adventure. We can see this because of the following things: daggers were falling out of the sky, there were guns shown and multiple hints of death throughout the clip. A great example of this is when James Bond was in the water, and you could see a skull forming in the water. This was done because they wanted to hint the general way that the film was going and what was probably going to happen. This is a big giveaway to what the genre is.

When we have a look at the narrative of the film opening we can see that they use camera angles very well to tell their story. So the first great shot that we see them use is a long shot of the main character in the water. this creates the effect that the main character is drowning and is close to death. This is backed up by the hand pulling him down. This is effective in showing the films genre as it signifies death and that is the main factor in an action film. A second thing that was done in the intro was to make James Bond falling through the sand into a skull. Again this is a real big hint into a large skull in the sand. Again this connotes death, literally.

When we have a look at the the main character himself we can see that he is wearing all black. The director probably wanted this because black represents death, and as he is wearing it, it shows that he is dead. Also you would wear a black, smart suit if you were attending a funeral. This followed by him being dragged into a skull really shows the representation of death. We can link death to themes as well. As death is a theme and it has been shown multiple times throughout the short intro it really does show death. When we have a look at setting we can see that at the beginning nearly all of the shots are under water. This 

could have been done because they want to represent the coldness and darkness that deep water has, and then use it to represent the agent himself. This is effective because it really does give us an idea of that the agent is like and what his emotions are like. however when we look to the end of the sequence it changes from the traditional underwater scene, and then has effects like graves, and knifes falling out of the sky. Again this was done to connote that someone big is going to die in the film. This was then followed by a few final scenes of blood coming out from above the water. When we have a look at the music that they are playing we can see that at the beginning it starts off slow and steady. However as the intro progresses it starts to get loader, faster and has a lot more bass in. This was done because they want to show how the film is going to progress, start off slow then get a lot more violent until the end when someone dies.
Overall this will help us when creating our own film opening because we know what made this successful and the things we should incorporate into our own opening.