Film, Director and year

The Shining Stanley Kubrik 1980

Genre and evidence

Horror shows lots of landscape in the middle of nowhere; usually a setting for a horror film. Car driving over valleys and mountains is associated with horrors.

Technical codes
Use of birds eye view shot shows the landscape, lonely car and the trail it is about to follow. Suggests the car is being watched, meaning the people in the car will be significant to the plot. Contrapuntal music doesnt sound scary like normal horror music but still slightly mysterious. Blue font suggests a calm genre but is the complete opposite as it is a horror (countertype). Capital letters are used to show importance of the font, which is some of the credits.
Use of editing, grey lines covering the writing, only to reveal it a second later. Suggests, at first, the writing isnt significant then shows importance when it is later revealed. Represents mystery genre. Music is loud and mysterious, the only thing (other than text) for the

Verbal codes
When the setting moves to mountain tops with snow on the writing becomes smaller and in lower case writing rather than capitals. This suggests that the mountain tops and writing are less significant to the previous writing we saw, also implying that the scenes within the mountain range will be less important than those on the valleys.

Symbolic codes
Yellow car contradicts the genre. Yellow is usually associated with happiness and calmness whereas horror films usually use dark colours; black, red etc.

Enigma codes?
Doesnt reveal any characters. Who is the protagonist? Are they male or female? Setting is in the middle of nowhere, where are they? Where is the car going?

Pyscho Alfred Hitchcock 1960

Mystery doesnt show any characters or reference to plot and music seems mysterious.

audience to focus on but still doesnt tell them a lot

about the film mystery.

At the beginning of the title sequence when the word PYSYCHO shows up, half of the writing is missing. This represents the word psycho as it is associated with someone who isnt quite all there or are a bit different to others.

Right at the end a city is shown (in black and white). A wide long shot has been use to show the whole city and all landscapes. This suggests this is the setting of the film.

No characters are revealed. This reinforces the idea of it being a mystery, who is the film about? A city is shown but has nobody in it, will this be the setting? Is it a ghost town?

Monsters Inc Pete Docter 2001

Animation/fantasy: the whole opening sequence is animated and shows monsters, which dont exist in real life.

Panic Room David Fincher 2002

Thriller the whole opening sequence is impersonal, it shows a huge American city with buildings and traffic but no actual characters. It suggests a big city is dangerous with no one to trust.

Animation shows multicoloured doors so the film appeals to both young boys and girls. Music is child-like, fun and synchronised with the movement of the doors being built up. The font is also child-like, almost like a childs writing. The colours are also different and appeal to both sexes. Low angle shots are used to show the dominance of the American buildings. This implies, in the film, material things are more important than people. As the musics tempo increases the camera rises which suggests, about the plot, that the music will be a big indication to what is going on.

The animation shows a monster eating up the writing which relates to the title and plot of the movie. It also implies, however not to children, that words are not important.

The credits are shown against a building. This suggests a battle between the words and the building. What is the audience more likely to pay attention to? Is this what the plot is about?

A door is opened and inside is a monsters mouth. This suggests, about the plot, that you dont know what is behind closed doors. Monsters have been used in a way that maybe scares the children a little bit but not enough to stop them from watching on. This is done by making the monsters colourful and comical. Some traffic is shown shortly after the showing of all the dominant buildings. This implies that the buildings make America complete, not the people in it. This tells us about the setting of the film but also indicates that the plot will be about a battle between material things and people.

Characters are not revealed and it doesnt show where the door leads; no setting. Will it be in a monster world? Will there be any humans in the movie?

No characters are revealed and the plot of the film is not made immediately clear. How does the title link to the actual plot?

I, Robot William Lebeda 2004

Action- shows a bit of action straight away and has Will Smith who is associated with action films.

A mixture of red and blue is used, red connotes evil whereas blue is calm. This suggests there will be a battle between good and evil in the film. Unusually, for a title sequence, there isnt a soundtrack. Instead there is non-diegetic sound that sounds like under water and bubbles. To add to this bubbles are shown. Bubbles are usually associated with children, which contradicts the film as it doesnt appeal to children nor have anything to do with them. The same font for the title of the film is used for the law, indicating they are of equal significance and one cant be without the other.

A few Laws of a robot are show in capital letters. This suggest the importance of the law, they are possibly the foundation of the whole film.

A robot is shown saving someone from a car underwater. The robots eyes are a bright amber colour. This suggests the robot is mutual in the battle between good and evil. Also, the robot is shown saving a person but you then see Will Smith waking from a nightmare. This implies everything is not what it seems, the robot may not have actually been saving the person but harming them.

The character, which appears to be the protagonist, face is not revealed, only his eyes. There is no indication of what he has to do with the robots. Is he good or bad?