Christopher Nolan

Similarities in each opening All 3 openings have many similarities. Firstly the opening titles of the films seem to be in really

dark colours. For example the ‘’Warner Bros’’ logo is originally yellow & blue, whereas in each 3 of the film openings (The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight rises & Batman Begins) the Warner Bros logo is shown to be in darker colours. Secondly in all 3 openings the music is very ambient which gives the audience a sense that something big is about to happen. Each opening starts off really fast, with a lot of action, for example in The Dark Knight we immediately see men in masks attempting to rob a big bank or in The Dark Knight rises the plane being taken down by Bane & his men. The events that take place in the openings play an important role in showing to the audience whether the character being shown is the protagonist or antagonist, for example when the Joker reveals himself in The Dark Knight we know that he is the antagonist of the film as he just robbed a bank, which is against the law. Establishing shots are used in each opening, they’re shown for a short period of time to give the audience a sense of what sort of place the characters are in.

Plane being taken down in The Dark Knight, also establishes to the audiences where they’re (flying over clouds.)

Dark knightThe dark knight starts off with men in clown masks attempting to rob a bank. The opening uses enigma codes as the audience ask themselves who are these people in masks & why are they robbing a bank. Firstly an extreme long shot is used showing the city, it is followed by a zoom into a specific window, which then gets broken by the robbers as they look to zip wire down through the window. This is a clear indication that the plan was very well thought out. A cut is used to move onto the next part of the opening where we see a man from behind holding a mask, then the camera zooms in for 10 seconds into the mask slowly which to me indicates that he is The Joker (The antagonist), because by it slowly zooming in to this specific persons mask it implies that this person has an important role to play throughout the film. We then see the bank robbery taking place, some people dying & finally we see the joker revealing himself as one of the masked men.

Dark knight risesThe logos of the production companies which are seen, are shown in very dark colours. The main part of the opening is when the CIA agent takes hostages in to the plane & then one of the hostages turns out to be Bane, he then takes down the aircraft as he gets help from his men. Whilst the car with the hostages inside is heading in the direction of the CIA agent the camera follows. When inside the plane Bane is revealed & a shot reverse shot is used to show the conversation between Bane & the CIA agent. An extreme long shot is then used to show that they’re flying over mountains. This is followed by another extreme long shot showing another plane appearing, the men from this plane then go & help Bane take down & destroy the plane which the CIA agent is in.

Establishing shots used in the 3 openings