Opening 2 Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice Opening

Release date: 23 November 2005 (USA)

Genre: Drama, Romance

Director: Joe Wright

Writers: Jane Austen (novel), Deborah Moggach (Screenplay)

Stars: Keira Knightly, Matthew Macfadyen, Brenda Blethyn

Budget: $28,000,000 

Gross: $121,147,947

Production Co: Focus Features, Universal Pictures, Working Title, Studio Canal

Pride and Prejudice starts off with the Universal studios intro. The intro is normal as the universal theme is playing. After that is the Working Title Intro.

The Movie fades in to a nice quite establishing shot of a field and the forest. There is Diegetic sound of birds tweeting. This along with the mist and sunshine tells the audience it is dawn. This shot goes on for quite a while. It’s a time laps because you can see the sun rise. The shot starts 33seconds in and ends at 1:20. In the middle of the shot non-diegetic music starts playing. The music is soft and quit which goes along with the landscape, and tells the audience what genre the movie is. As the shot goes on text appears such as the title and companies. The main tittle is bright and bold; the text fades away slowly which again fits with the genre.

There is a cut to who we presume is the main character. Its medium close up from a low angle. There is some lens flare which backs up the peacefulness. The non-diegetic music keeps playing. As she reads she smiles and bits her finger, this tells the audience how immersed she is in the book and that she is most likely a bookworm. There is another cut to an over the shoulder shot of her reading the book. When she finishes the book she strokes it and sighs.

There is another cut to an establishing shot of her walking over a pond of some sorts. The audience can tell by her costume and location that this is not in our time. There is the diegetic sound of ducks and geese quacking as she walks by. There is a cut to a medium shot of her walking past drying sheets, she also walks past 2 women who are working out sides cleaning the sheets.

The tracking shot continues to focus on her until it stops at 2:06 where the camera goes through a door way. The dolly shot focuses on a woman playing the piano transforming the non-diegetic music in to diegetic music. The shot continuous as it pans to the right over a table of props giving the audience the idea that only women live here.

The camera finds focus back to the main character and an over the shoulder shot shows 2 people arguing. You can hear the diegetic sound of her walking up the steps and a man throwing seeds on the floor. The camera continous to follow her as see walks inside.