Analysis of Friday the 13th 2009 edition

Friday the 13th 2009

Director – Marcus Nispel

·         Friday the 13th is a 2009 American horror film directed by Marcus Nispel and written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. It is a reboot of the Friday the 13th film series, which began in 1980, and the twelfth installment in the franchise.

I decided to choose a movie opening from a movie that I had never seen before but also a movie with a different genre from action this will then go on to give me a proper understanding of how different genres perceive their opening.

Visuals and Sound

Between 0:00 and 0:05 there was complete darkness with no sound were as in the visuals the colour red appeared in screen and so did ‘New line Cinema’ logo this lasted for 10 seconds; 015 where the next title was shown. At 0:15 ‘A Time Warner Company’ was shown this lasted 2 seconds taking us into complete darkness and silence. Red clouds started to appear from the darkness and red glass stars start to shoot out of the sky at this moment in time there is background sounds of shooting stars which link with the visuals. 8 seconds later ‘Paramount and mountain’ is shown with the stars surrounding them. This suddenly changes to ‘A Viacom company’ and once again enters darkness at 0:36 lasting 3 seconds taking us to 0:39 where there is a bird’s eye view of red sand dunes, once they appear the platinum sound track commences as the ‘Platinum Dunes’ logo appears on screen shrinking to middle of the screen. At 0:42 the screen starts to shrink this lasts a short 6 seconds this then takes us to a blank screen at 0:50 where 2 seconds later 'Newline Cinema and Paramount Pictures Present' fades in, it is then followed by 'In association with Micheal Bay'. There is a cut to darkness taking us to 1:02 where A Platinum Dunes Production appears on screen this then remains in position for 5 second where it is replaced by 'June 13th 1980'. Trees then appear with a crack of thunder and flashes lightening which changes the colour of the screen. At 1:15 someone is creeping through the trees the name 'Jared Padaleki' rose to the screen, once again lightening flashes and you can hear a woman crying running through the trees. At this point in the opening the woman was still running around through the trees and names kept scrolling up screen with Daniel Panabaker at 1:23 and  Amanda Righetti at 1:28 A man then catches the woman at 1:38, the screen automatically turns white with the name 'Travis Von Winkle' appearing on the same time. At 1:42 there is a mid shot of the woman running from the man this is then accompanied by the name 'Aaron Yoo' again lightening flashes at the trees/woods then become black and white as she is still running, it then cuts to shot of someone watching her from behind a tree. Suddenly two women start fighting in the rain with the name 'Derek Mears' showing up, 1:57 an over shoulder shot of the girl looking at the man cutting to a close up of a John Doe soaking in the rain. Lastly at exactly 2:00 the names 'Jonathan Sadowski, Julianna Guill and Ben Feldman' appeared on screen.

Reflection

As a fan of horror movies I loved  this opening, no it did not show a variety of different shots but did make me want to carry on watching. Something about opening kind of through me off as I was told in class that the directors name always appears first but in this case the first name was 'Jared Padaleki' where as the directors name is 'Marcus Nispel'. Overall it was a good opening but I do have some criticism I don't think every thing should have been in black and white as I could barely tell what was a man and what was a woman it got a bit confusing. I also don't think having the background in black and white and then have the titles in white was a very bright idea as it is very hard to tell who is actually acting in the movie .