Film Analysis - Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring

The film opening i am analysing is Lord Of The Rings: The fellowship of the ring. This is a Fantasy/Adventure film and was released in 2001. This film is the first of the trilogy. Originally a novel written by J R R Tolkien but more recently has been turned into a film directed by Peter Jackson. It's won 4 Oscars and many other awards.

This opening scene is 7 minuets long and has been used to introduce characters, setting, time and the background behind the story. It starts by playing non-diagetic music. This is a classical piece with string instruments and a choir singing and sounds very eery. This is straight away introducing the audience to a signature theme tune that is played through out the film. Then a narrative voice is herd. Its starts by a women speaking in another language (elvish) that helps build this fantasy genre up. The woman's voice is slow and soft which also adds to the eeriness of the music. She begins to tell the story and introduce characters. I feel this is a good way to introduce characters briefly and would like to use a similar technique in our opening scene. Other sound consists of diagetic sound which is played under the music. For example the roaring fire helps add excitement. The screaming of villagers to show terror. The sounds of swords clashing together in the battle and the close-up shots of the helmet and ring thudding against the ground.

Mise en scene is a combination of costume, props, location and lighting. This helps build up a certain mood or theme in a film and is very significant.

As the characters are being introduce by narrative, clips of them are shown so the audience knows how each type of fantasy character looks. There's tracking shots of the elves hand and their rings, birds eye view zoom-out shot of the dwarfs. The good use of costume helps separate the different characters. The elves are shown with long hair and pointed ears. The woman is wearing a bright white flowing dress, which shows a peaceful character. Whereas the dark lord Sauron is a large character, wearing thick steel armour and a pointed mask over a black cloak build a darker character and is shown to have power as a low angle shot is used when he is looking at the enemy. The costumes is a way of emphasising one of the representations of good and evil.

A lot of props are used in this opening scene but the main one being the ring. Which its importance is shown throughout the film often by extreme close-ups. Its journey is shown through each owner and its location. The film is based around this one prop. Another important prop in this opening scene is the map. Pans of this map are shown before clips making the location obvious to the audience. This is also a feature that i feel would be effective to use in our opening scene. A pan of the battle field shows props that consist of weapons. For example the men and elves are using golden handle swords which shows their strong and professional army whereas the dark army are using axes, clubs, swords and many other props used as weapons.

There are many locations in this opening. It begins in castles that are dark as they are candle lit showing the time periods. The the location changes to the mount doom by using and establishing shot which is dark and lit by the red glow of the flames which builds a dark evil mood. The battle and the village being destroyed is all outside and the weather is gloomy which correlates with the mood. The other location is in the cave where the character Gollum lives. This is also dark and gloomy only lit by moonlight beaming onto the character.

There are two different paces of editing in the opening scene. Faster pace is used during the battle to add more excitement. Faster changes in shots are used to do this. The rest is a slower pace of editing. Fades are often used as a transition between shots which helps slow the pace down. Another use of transition is fire. The fire swipes across the screen and the shot changes. One effective piece of editing that i liked was where the map was shown behind and the actual location was shown above, as if they were over lapping. A lot of special effects are used which also helps to show the genre of film. The glowing of the ring. The flashing of the dark lords weapon and the explosion of Sauron.

There are many techniques used in this film that i feel should be carried out in our own film opening.