Pulp Fiction Opening Analysis

Pulp Fiction is a film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino and distributed by Mirimax studios. The film was released in May of 1994 and grossed $8.5 million at the box office.

 

 

The opening sequence for pulp fiction is one of the most crucial scenes for the film. The two characters within the opening sequence, Pumpkin and Honey Bunny, are not major roles within the movie as a whole. This leads to the question why is this scene first and not Vincent and joules, the two main characters within the production? The reason for putting this famous scene first is almost like a taster for the audience of the environment in which the film they are about to whiteness and the style of film. The scene is designed by Tarantino to be almost tong in cheek by the way the characters speak so openly and fondly of committing robberies for financial gain. This black sense of humour is placed so openly within the first scene to almost warn the viewer that this is the style of the movie and if you don’t enjoy it the film will not be enjoyed. Even the names of the characters “Honey Bunny “ and “Pumpkin” are designed to be humorous because these are two serious criminals in which commit serious crimes yet their names are silly and comical for their serious occupation. The main gag within this scene is in the last moments when Honey Bunny goes from being sensitive towards the “little girl” that was on the other end of the phone that was given to the bank manager to in the scene when they agree to rob the restaurant they are in and she says “Any of you F*****g pricks move, and I’ll electrocute every mother f*****g last one of you”

  

          

Fight club Analysis

Fight club is a film based on the novel "fight club" by Chuck Palahniuk. The film was released October 15th 1999 and at the box office grossed $100.9 million. It was distributed by 20th century FOX who have distributed other high grossing films such as Die Hard , I Robot and Avatar , the highest grossing motion picture of all time.

 

 

The scene starts out with a zoom from the opening title credits with a focus on the sights of a pistol. Then it continues gaining focus on the extreme close up shot of the man above. There is a silence and then a narrator (non digetic) says "People are always asking me if I know Tyler Durden" in a subtle and calm voice which contrasts with the image of a man in distress.

 



 

Then there is a clear cut to a close up shot of the same scene from another angle which establishes the scenario the character is in. There is a clear digetic voice in the scene saying "This is it" we know its not a voice over because it comes from the left side of the screen where the gun is, and it holds more re verb then the voice over suggesting that the environment is a building with a vast amount of space for re-verb to be on a voice. 

 

 

 

 Then the diagetic voice says "would you like to say a few words to mark the occasion?" To which the character in the shot replies but the audience cannot work out what he's saying due to the muffling of the gun in his mouth. The shot only lasts a couple of seconds but due to the tilt it suggests to the audience that the unknown person holding the gun is the most powerful because he looks down on his victim. This gives an air of anticipation for the audience because they want to see who this person is and who the victim is.  The fact that he's speak with a gun in  his mouth may be a clue to his personality that he may not be afraid of death due to the calmness of himself in the situation.

 

Then the scene cuts to an eye line shot of the , from what we have seen, protagonist and he says when the gun is pulled away "I cannot think of anything)". The non digetic over voice says "for a second I totally forget about Tyler's whole controlled demolition thing and wonder how clean that gun is" this clear connection shows the audience that this character is a crucial part of this film. The hint towards " controlled demolition thing" establishes the hostile environment the main character is dealing with. Suttle hints in the opening sequence help suggest to the audience what has happened to reach this piont in the character's life.

 

Then we hear the voice over say "we have front row seats for this theatre of mass destruction" as the camera ,using cgi, looks at gentleman ,who is holding the gun, from the other side of the glass then it swings scaling the building down into the street. This establishes the environment that they are in ( a major city at night). This is essential for an opening scene to establish the environment the film will be set it because if the audience may feel less encouraged to to watch the full film because they dot know where its taking place thus they cannot empathise with the characters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



What are the statistics?

From looking at http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/ The vast majority of the list are forms of action films.  The highest grossing being Marvell's Avengers which grossed $1,511.8 Million. This suggests that the making of an action film may have more interest in the general public due to the fact that the highest grossing thus most watched films are action. In more research I will be analysing other introduction sequences of high grossing films to find any correlations which may be the key to great opening sequences which I can put in mine.

BIG CHANGE!

We have discussed our options and after some inspiration from looking at past a level projects we have decided to change from making a comdey film opening to an action / crime film opening.
The films I will be analysing their openings are

Fight club

Pulp fiction

scarface

007 Goldeneye

The firm

I will be analysing them on their ability to esablish the environment , the charchters and the scinario.

Reserch into opening sequences

Me and David have decided to collaborate again to produce our next task of making an opening sequence for a film idea of our own. After looking at the statistics from http://boxofficemojo.com/ we realised that action movies are the highest grossing then the next is comedies. We felt that with our budget that an action movie may be hard so a comedy may be more suited.

One of the production companies we love the style of is Film 4 Productions with films may high grossing films under their belt. Film 4 have a style all of their own in which me and David will try and replicate with our own devices in our opening sequence.

Films which I will be evaluating there opening scenes are :

-Hot fuzz
-Shaun of The Dead
-Four Lions
-The Inbetweeners movie
-Kevin and perry go large ( not a film 4 production but is similar in style)

the prisoner reprisal summary.

This piece was an example of what happens when timekeeping is lacking. We did not make a schedule in which to keep by so when we came to filming we were not organised and what made this even worse was the rain that came over Durham that week that made us change out whole production by setting it all indoors. Yet the biggest mistake of all was our last minute choice to ditch the script and make it a parody of our last production and make the script off the top of our heads. Since we hadn't written the script as a comedy/spoof the changes we made were not funny. It obscured the storyline as well so the audience didn't know what was going on. One of our downfalls was my idea to have me walking in the background, which rewind the continuity, this was supposed to be suttle and the audience was not supposed to notice really but in actual fact it was very visible and it drew the audience's attention.

Yet on the other hand taking away the story and dialogue I am immensely impressed with the shots I have taken. The over the shoulder shot in the hallway looks great. Also the first scene of the handheld shot looks great but it does go on for too long and the audience gets bored of more that a minute of dialogue.

In conclusion the big lesson I have learnt keep to the initial script and storyboard. Massive changes last minute may have flaws that are not considered at the time of making them. In my next production I will keep to the initail script ad storyboard and another thing I will need more people so someone can operate the cam so I can get some good two shots.