Opening scene reasearch - Sci-fi

The film I chose is Inception, a 2010 legendary pictures syncopy science fiction film directed by Christopher Noland and played by Leonardo DiCaprio (Cobb),Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Arthur), Tom Hardy (Eames) and Elliot Page (Ariadne).

The genre is shown from the beginning when the use of non-diegetic soundtrack is played which gradually gets louder, creating a sense of mystery and confrontation maybe suggesting to the audience it could be a sci-fi and builds suspense drawing the audience in. However, the audience is made fully aware it is a sci-fi through the diegetic dialogue that Cobb has with the old man as he is talking about controlling dreams which is not something that could happen in the real world. The first clip where Cobb is washed up on the shore a close-up of his face is used as well as modified speed suggesting that he is confused and does not know what is happening, making the audience wonder how he got there and what bad things have happened to him for him to end up like this, drawing them in as they want to find out. This could also imply that he is the main character as he is the first person to be shown in the scene (which is not always the case). We can also tell he is the main character as he has the most screen time and his costume/dialogue during the end of the scene in the dining room is greatly confident as if he knows what he is talking about and is confident in himself.

 

The time and place are shown throughout. We know it is modern day or maybe even futuristic from the costumes which are typical day to day clothes that Cobb wears at the start and suits that all 3 men wear when they are having a 'meeting' in the dining room. The one thing that could suggest it is future time is the dialogue they have in the dining room about dreams. We are told the place by the guard at the start who pokes Cobb with a gun and shouts to one of his co-workers in a different language (maybe Chinese), as that is the assumed race he is, as well suggesting they are somewhere is Asia.

The target audience would be primarily 15yrs upwards and boys/males, we know this due to the genre as Sci-fi is stereo-typically aimed towards boys/men and the use of props such as guns are used creating an idea that violence and disagreement may be involved drawing in the targeted audience. We also know the target audience through the use of characters, as all 7 characters shown in this scene are male meaning that young boys would look up to them and admire them thinking they are 'cool' and 'invincible'. 

The main characters introduced include Cobb, Arthur and Saito. We know from this scene that Cobb is most likely to be the main character which I have explained above, followed by Saito as he appears to be the 'bad guy'. We assume this through the use of character positioning when he is sitting at the end of the table and slowly turns around when the guards speak to him whilst non-diegetic soundtrack is playing creating an eery and dangerous tone to him, which is further backed up by the confidence and calmness in his voice as if he has done this before. Arthur is Cobb's side character/college who helps him with his idea to make it come to life. This is told to us when he backs up whatever Cobb has to say when he is presenting his idea to Saito and also is sitting opposite him creating the idea of support. 

Once watching the opening scene, we assume that something bad is about to happen because as soon as Saito left the room, they knew he was onto him creating a sighn of weakness, then all of a sudden everything starts shaking creating tension shown by a zoom in on the table shaking, to which Cobb looks at his watch with an extreme close up of his watch ticking pleaonastically speeding up to then jump to the next scene. This created a lot of tension and suspense whilst also foreboding that something bad was about to happen and they were aware of it. 

In conclusion I think that the opening scene to Inception is fairly successful as it does portray the main theme of the film which is dreams and manipulating them whilst also creating suspense and wonder to the audience about what is happening and who Saito is. But could be a bit clearer on the genre as not a lot showed that it was a Sci-fi so could get confused with an action. But did clearly present the time/place, characters and their personalities and the target audience.