Analysis of opening two minutes of Hott Fuzz

At the beginning of Hot fuzz we are first introduction with the inter titles. First of all we are introduced with  "universal" followed by "working title" these are both on a black screen before we see the actual opening of the film.  This has diegetic music playing over the top of police sirens,

leading us into introducing the first character with a long shot. This is a long shot of the character walking up to the camera looking serious. Then we have an extreme close up of his police identity card. This is when we find out his name is Nicholas Angel. Already we have been introduced to his name, then we find out more about his character during the beginning scene using non diegtic sound, which is a narration of him self telling us about his life. From this we instantly know quite a lot about his character, and we can tell that he loves his job and is serious about it from his facial expression and the way he talks

about his job. This is effective because it gives the audience an introduction the character but doesn't tell us much about what the story line is going to include. This also sets up the narrative, automatically we can tell that the movie is going to be from his point of view and it's going to be a story about him. This includes giving us background information in the narrative before the film has properly started.

During this long shot of the character walking up to the camera we have text on the screen, but very minimal amounts of text. There is text such as "in association with studio canal" and "in association with big talk productions." The text is just giving us the big production names, which means it doesn't interrupt the rest of the opening film.

The genre is a mix between action and comedy. We know it involves action because there is action involved such as explosions and running through different scenarios. Also the sequence is really fast moving, which makes it intense, and there are lots of close ups to show detail, but the shots are still

fast moving. Also the camera moves quickly up, down or to the sides to go into the next shot, which suggests that the movie is going to be related with action. Comedy is also introduced into the beginning sequence. Even though the character is really serious about his job, there are a lot of element of comedy involved. For example there is a sarcastic element to everything. Every thing is rather intense, but there is emphasis put on the wrong things to make it funny. The bike riding course is portrayed as really serious as we have close ups of the wheels breaking on the floor, as well as with the car training. The car has been shown on a race track as to be used for a stunt. This makes it funny because the audience know that this isn't what would actually happen in the police force. As Nicholas
is so serious about little things in his job and trying to make them seem intense makes the whole scene funny. The mise en scene helped to enhance the action side of the film. Everything was well planned, the locations where right and the equipment around them was proper police equipment. Even when they arrested someone they had a low lighted den for the criminal. There were explosions at some point which made the whole scene a lot more realistic and enforced the genre of action.

 There are a number of shots including, long shots, medium shots, eye level shots, high and low angles, close ups and extreme close ups. The amount of different shots and angles is interesting because they swap between them quite a lot, but I think this engages the audience because it makes it exciting and they get to see different shots from different point of view. For example when the eye level shot is used, we can see what it's like from the characters point of view, and it puts you in the action so you can experience the same emotions as the character.

The extreme close ups and close ups focus on piece of detail in particular, and makes the audience

focus on them. These could be key terms in the film and things that you will be seeing a lot or things that you need to remember. Also again it puts the audience right in the action and invades their sense of safety.

The Camera movement creates a big part in creating atmosphere. Where as some camera movement are smooth, others are quite fast,

which makes it short and snappy, which means that they could get a lot of information into such a short period of time. For example the first shot we see is of Nicholas walking towards the camera, and the camera is slowly panning in on him. This creates mystery and suspense , but also everything is calm.

Where as the next shots are fast moving and the camera is panning towards different parts of the screen quickly, making it snappy. Also it blends all of the shots into each other as well. For example there are shots where a transition will be created to go into the next shot where two people will be walking towards each other and they will cross, resulting in the screen going black, and then it will go into the next shot where the two people will carry on walking, and the shot will open up into a different location. This is effective because its a clever and interesting way or going to the next shot and it links everything together. I would like to use something similar in my film, as well as the short snappy shots, so that it moves quickly and it can get into the story quickly.