The Crow Opening Analysis

Title: The Crow
Director: Alex Proyas
Year Produced: 1994
Budget: $15m
Gross: $94m

The Crow doesn't have an ident at the start but instead begins with a black screen. A tamborine starts playing and the name of the main actor in the film, Brandon Lee (Bruce Lee's son), quickly fades in. It then fades out and the title of the film, The Crow, fades in and out. Both use a white, sans-serif capital font against a black background. After the title has faded out you hear sirens.

The next scene fades in from the black. It shows an establishing, aerial extreme long shot of a city smoke and fire coming from it. The buildings are almost black and the fire and smoke is orange, which are the two main colours in the shot. The words 'October 30th - Devils Night' fade in at the bottom of the screen in a white font. This provides the viewer with exposition as to the time of year and also signifies that the film might be set in Detroit, as Devils Night was commonly associated with arson and vandolism in Detroit at the time.

It then cuts to an extreme long shot from a helicopter of a building on fire. The helicopter moves forwards going over and between the buildings and is it does this at first there are some sounds of police radios and then the voice of a female child plays and she talks about crows significance when bad things happen. The take ends with a shot through a smashed round window of police investigating inside a large vandalised room. The room lit in red.

It then cuts to a birds-eye view extreme long shot shot of a couple of people on lying on stretchers and some other people standing around them. There is also a hearse and a police car and barriers in the shot. The scene is quite dark but there is lighting from the left side of the screen which highlights the main focus of the image and there are also police lights flashing. I like the use of lighting in this shot and I think that we should try to use the ideas of the lighting in our opening when the main character is outside in the flashback.

Next it cuts to a close up of one of the officers in the room smoking. Then it cuts to a medium shot from behind him as begins to turn around.

There is then a medium close up of a forensic photographers camera flashing as there is the diagetic noise of the shutter closing. This is a very short take which I think helps to add to the disquieted feeling of the opening. It cuts to an extreme close up of an office going into a box to get out and put on some latex gloves. The photographers flash goes off a couple of times while this happens. This all creates anchorage to show that some people have been killed in the building and the police have just got there to investigate as the victim/s bodies are taken to a mortuary.

It then cuts back to the medium shot of the officer. There is then a high angle shot that pans to show a woman bleeding from her chest and face lying on the ground and paramedics giving her an oxygen mask and treating her.

There are then a few shots that give the audience a bit of insight as to how its happened. There is a close up shot of an officer dusting a glass vase, the officer who was smoking picks up a couple of photographs of people, he looks at a photo on some paper on the wall of a group of people. This cuts between a woman and a man on the picture. This signifies that maybe the man attacked the woman who is lying on the floor. The officer then picks up an invitation to a wedding of Mr. Eric Draven and Ms. Shelly Webster. I think that all of this works well as it subtly provides information about what might of happened but still manages to keep the film in polysemy.

The first diagetic speaking doesn't come into the film until 1:48, where the police officer starts talking with the other officer, who is looking at the wedding dress, about the invitation. There is cross cutting between them talking and the woman lying on the ground being treated. One of the paramedics then tells an officer that the woman needs to be taken to hospital. He agrees and they begin strapping her to a stretcher.

One of the officers asks what the count is so far and the other officer replies saying theres been 143 fires with 3 hours to go. This provides the audience with exposition of the number of fires and also the time of day.

The woman is wheeled out of the room and then it cuts to a close up of a wooden beam outside. A crow flies in and lands on the beam. This, with what the voice over at the start said, foreshadows what will happen.

It then cuts to shots of the main officer coming out of the building and talking to a detective. It also cuts to a close up of the womans face.

Next it cuts to a close up of someones feet who is wearing black boots and riding a skateboard. It then cuts to a medium shot of the person who is a young girl pushing her way through the crowds. There is cross cutting between the girl, the police and there is also a close up of the crow. The girl gets to the woman on the stretcher and calls her Shelly. Shelly then asks where Eric is and the officer tells her not to worry about him. She then asks the officer to tell her to take care of Sarah. Shelly is then put into an ambulance and the office asks the young girl if she's Sarah, to whihch she replies that she is. All of this provides exposition about the names of some of the characters which tells the audience that the woman being taken away is getting married the next day and she was probably with her fiance that night.

The officer tells Sarah that her sisters going to be OK. Sarah then replies by saying that Shellys not her sister but her friend who takes care of her and then she tells the officer that he lied to Shelly about Eric and to her about Shelly. She says 'shes going to die isnt she' and then starts crying and the officer comforts her.

The girl is the same person that was doing the voice over at the start which suggests that the opening is a flashback as what she said seems to foreshadow what will happen in the rest of the film, which suggests that its already happened when she does the voice over.

It cuts to an extreme long shot and the camera zooms out which shows the officer comfortic Sarah in the center of the shot with other people standing in the dark street which is lit by the fires, police lights and street lights. The end of the take goes into slow motion and the shot fades out to black. I think this is an effective way to end the opening as it leads into the rest of the film and also signifies that it was all a flashback.

The opening is 4 minutes 3 seconds.