Opening Analysis: Jaws | tdmediaportfolio

Jaws (12A) Opening Analysis

(Up to 2:36)

Mise En Scene

The lighting in the scene is low key, which contrasts the usually sunny and safe setting, the beach. This puts the audience on edge due to the incongruity of the setting with the lighting. The beach setting also gives a sense of normality and, as other thrillers do, suggests that this could happen to anybody. This is also backed up by the fact that the characters are wearing casual costume, which shows that these characters are normal, and also that they're most likely not the main characters.

Contrast between the low key lighting and safe beach setting

The casual costume of both characters is seen in this shot, as well as the low key lighting

Camerawork

The scene starts off with long shots of the characters running down to the beach. This shot distance is used to portray the charaters as small, as well as remove a sense of danger. The scene then uses a POV shot of something underwater, which the audience would assume is the antagonist of the movie due to its accompaniment with music (see Soundtrack for more info). This is then followed by mainly close ups of Chrissie (the woman in the scene) being attacked, which puts the audience close to the danger and the fear of the character, the only time this differs is when the camera cuts to the man in the scene, who can't hear Chrissie's screams, and as such this part is a contrast between Chrissie's screams and the silence on shore.

This is the POV shot that introduces the supposed antagonist of the scene

The first close up after the 'antagonist' attacks

Soundtrack

The scene starts out in complete silence, the only sound being the diegetic sound of the character's voices. The score starts suddenly alongside the POV shot of Chrissie, where it starts quietly with the major key. The score then rapidly crescendos when the attack starts, to add to the tension and panic of the scene. This scene relies heavily on synchronous sound so that the sound and the events match to make the audiene uncomfortable. When Chrissie finally gets pulled underwater, a musical attack happens as a juxtaposition to the panic that just happened, and also to let the audience know that the situation has finished, and Chrissie has, presumably, died.

Editing

This scene starts out by using long cuts, due to the lack of tension and fear at this point in the scene, so it gives the audience a false sense of security. Once the antagonist starts to attack, the scene starts to use a lot of quick cuts, to create a sense of confusion and fear amongst the audience, the only long cuts from here is when the camera isn't focused on Chrissie, to give a contrast from the fear of the attack to everything going on around her.