The Place Behind The Pines Opening Scene Analysis

The opening scene of the place behind the pines straight away features diegetic sound and is set in a room with low key lighting only showing the torso of the character and his prop which is a butterfly knife. The camera then continues to follow the character into a fairground which once again is lit by low key lighting; we still have not seen the characters face in any of the angles. The thing that makes the audience feel as if they are interacting with this opening scene is the fact that it is all one shot so it is almost like we are following this mysterious character to wherever he may be going. Linking to mis en scene, the contrast of what we perceive the character to be like from his clothes, the way he acts and his body shape compared to the fun and non-seriousness of the fairground is very strong this builds the character up to emphasise how masculine and serious he actually is. At one point in this scene the character walks underneath the advertisement for a fairground ride which is loads of flashing lighting, this lighting puts the spotlight on the character which makes us concentrate more on him than anything else in the shot, there is also some diegetic sound of kids on fairground rides. The character then walks into a tent which we can tell is the place he is heading because he walks through a crowd of people who cheer him, the way the camera has followed him through the crowd gives the audience a real in the moment feel to the scene, at this point there is some more diegetic sound which is the man on the microphone introducing the character we have just been following in the scene. At the last part of the opening scene we finally see the characters face it is a close up so it is more exiting as we have finally found out who he is, get on a motorbike and ride into a spherical cage, the way it has been filmed from a low angle emphasises how dangerous it is making the character out to be dangerous.