War Genre: saving private Ryan

1. Saving Private Ryan - The opening sequence of Saving private Ryan starts the movie off with silence with only the pleonastic sound of the waves breaking against the boat as the boat prepares to land on the beach. The silence already builds up tension and prepares us for a very dramatic first scene as everyone is in silence as they are heading into a bloody war battle, where most off them will be slaughtered. This very dramatic opening makes it very clear of the War genre and the silence is almost sinister. The sound of the violent spraying of bullets killing so many in such a short period of time is so powerful as this is the only sound we can here, yet its setting the scene of how dark the battle would have been. From the opening of the movie we can expect a very dark and powerful movie, we are unsure on how much dialogue their will be throughout the movie as the first scene is shows a very gruesome start to the movie and the little dialogue is represented by the circumstance. However we do expect little dialogue from just the opening as we are unsure what happens later on in the movie. The targeted audience is very clear from the title and from the opening sequence. From just the title we know that it must be based around war as “private” is the first rank in the army. From the opening sequence it soon becomes very clear as it starts in the very front line of war, showing how scary and gruesome the beginning of the battle was and the short journey heading to the front line. From the opening sequence we are focused on the characters on only one of the many boats, however we can only assume the two main characters from the camera focus on them but we are still very unfamiliar with them not knowing any of their names or their personalities. We can only see the fear from the look on every single one of their faces and from many of them being sick from being extremely nervous. In this opening sequence the main shot is close ups as this gives us a sense of how nervous the soldiers are by the look on their faces and it makes us feel closer to the characters. It also builds up suspense from moving from a close up of each soldier on the boat looking at one of the main features that they all have in common the look of fear on their faces, which makes us prepared for the very dramatic scene which is soon to come. I think this is a very successful opening as it immediately makes it very clear of its genre, war. This satisfies the targeted audience. 

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