Analysing the opening for the film 'Contact'.

Analysis:
The film 'Contact' was released in cinemas in 1997. It is rated a PG. The production studio for this film was Warner Bros, and Warner Bros was also the distribution company. The director of this film was Robert Zemeckis. The box office takings were $100 million in the opening weekend. It was nominated for five Oscars and a golden globe award, and it won many awards from the Academy of science fiction.

Target Audience:
The target audience for this film would be mainly fans of science fiction, and this would mainly be people aged around 15-35, and the main gender primary audience would be males, because they tend to stereo typically be attracted to science fiction more than females. The secondary audience would then be females interested in science fiction and aged around the same kind of age as the primary male target audience. In this film, the narrative is mainly based around a science fiction genre, so the target audience would reflect this a lot.

Title and Credit analysis:
The Film title is shown before anything else. It is unanimated, and is in quite a futuristic font. This reflects the narrative about the film, because it is based around science-fiction and shows that the film will be about the future and space, like the writing. The credits are not shown in the opening of the film. The typography of the title is quite plain, but it is in a slightly different font that is blue, and blue is a colour that is used a lot to represent space, so it may also foreshadow the narrative.

Narrative:
In this film opening, the narrative is set up quite well for the rest of the film. The film opening basically includes a photo of planet earth, then the camera zooms out continually for a couple of minutes until it shows the universe we are in. Whilst showing this, the music played goes back in time the further away from Earth you get. The film, which is widely based around the main characters who have a fascination with space, has a good opening because it reflects the narrative quite well. The audience are shown quite how small and insignificant we are compared to the rest of the universe, and what possibility there is that there is life on other planets. This reflects the narrative because the whole story-line is based around the possibility of life on other planets, so by showing you in the opening how small we really are compared to the rest of the universe it shows the audience the bigger possibility of life on other planets. At the end of the part where it shows you the universe we are in, it then goes on to zoom out into a child's eye. The child then turns out to be one of the main characters later on in the film, so this is a good way to introduce a character in the opening of the film,

Atmosphere:
The non-diagetic soundtrack creates an atmosphere in the opening. It is a range of songs, but whilst the camera continues to zoom out, the music continues to get older. It plays a range of songs from over the last century or so. This creates an atmosphere of wander for the audience, because the soundtrack must be something everyone recognizes, so it reaches out to a large audience. There is also a voice over played, which is non-diagetic. It also plays with the aspect of things over time, so also as the camera zooms out the voice over is sound recordings from the past. All of this foreshadows the narrative and creates an atmosphere of wander and makes the audience think a lot. This can relate to the genre of the science fiction film, because it makes the audience think a lot, rather than a film where the audience can watch the whole film without properly focusing.

Location/sets:
The mise en scene, which starts off as planet earth, relates to the genre. The location of the opening of this film represents the narrative, because it shows that it is in space. The set is really what makes the opening of this film, because the reason why it stood out so much to me was because it is in space, and really makes you realize a lot of things. This setting makes the audience realize that they are very small compared to the rest of the universe, and they also may have feelings of nostalgia towards some of the non-diagetic soundtrack that is being played in the background of the clip. The iconography signifies the importance of us in the big universe because we, as far as we know, are the only living planet discovered by humans so far.