Interstellar Opening

 Interstellar 

Interstellar opens in silence while tracking back to a level of a bookcase that looks aged while this shot is happening the title appears. The fact that this moment is in silence shows a slight significance as there is no distraction from what is being shown suggesting that what is being shown could be a hint to the plot of the film or to a key moment. Another accompanying factor in this shot that leads me to believe requires a form of focus is the dust like particles that are falling down slowly right by the bookcase as it is unusual for anything to be falling like this unless you are outside. Right before the screen fades to black there is a little toy spaceship that is shown at the edge of the bookshelf and as we know that this is a film mostly featured in space it confirms that there was possibly another hint to the context of the film hidden in the first 10 seconds. This would follow the common themes in a sci-fi film as most of the time nothing is really answered or revealed until the very end and lots of filmmakers in this genre like to leave hints from the beginning meaning that you only notice it the second time round. From darkness there is then the diegetic sound of a woman speaking as voice over on the black screen then leading to a sound bridge from the black screen to the older women talking. What is interesting about the setting and structure of the shot of this moment is that it feels very much like a documentary or interview style as it is a slight close up and the women is not looking at the screen but at someone off screen that is probably interviewing, also the lighting is focus fully on her as the space background around her in very low lighting but just behind her face is what we can recognise as a bookshelf which can be linked to the title sequence imply books or that bookshelf will be significant in this film. The woman then says her father was a farmer ‘like everybody else back then’ this continues into a sound bridge and voice over, over the shot of a corn field. What this sound and editing technique implies to the audience is that her speaking in past tense means that this film will be set in the future for us but past for that woman and so since we are going back in time this changes the transition into a flashback. None of the shots so far have not given any clue about the film and so the shot of the corn field becomes more than just a cornfield. It is to our understanding that this is probably the farm she was just talking about and the word ‘but that's not how he started’ being the last words suggest this film will be about how he got there. We now have gained so much of the plot without even realising that this will probably draw ina loyal fanbase that will watch dit again again as that is what it was made for, it may appear to complex but i don't believe it is necessary to catch all the little details to understand where this film will go. 

The second part of the opening that i would recognise as a key moment as all the shots have meaning would be the scene leading on from where i left, in this moment it is a very fast cut to the side of a plane with the diegetic sound of the wind beating against the plane, then it cuts to inside the plane when you can hear the diegetic sound of the plane alarm and also the sound of a murmuring masculine this is occurring with the accompany of a shaky camera implying instability with the plane as the man seems stressed and their are clearing things not working properly in the plane. It is then focused on another sequence of the plane that we now know is crashing as we can hear the diegetic sound of the unsteady plane in the air which the air hitting hit hard and the sound of the plane alarm getting louder and faster with the man's diegetic shouting. All of these things plus the instability and the short time duration of each shot create a high intensity around the very start of the film. there is a noticeable change between the first. There is also a moment in this chaotic scene where we see the pilot's face. We have distinguished as a man from his voice but he is weaning a helmet in the shakey close up shots so all we can see are his eyes but we still can recognise his stress. This sequence of shots ends by a back view of the pilot hitting his head on his seat and we know that this is hard and there is the sound effect of that support a hard hit to the head also, there is then a cut to the man waking up and it is once again the sound of silence as it is the dramatic change it accentuates the sound of the hit and makes it sound worse. This hit and change into waking up combined with him seeming stressed and sweaty when he wakes up suggests the sequence we just saw was a nightmare and his diegetic heavy breathing shows this stress again. Also the change of light makes brings out the differences in both scenes and the different atmosphere in both as in the plane shot they is a high intensity and almost blinding light around the plane to make the scene more chaotic and overwhelming (sensory overload) while the waking up scene is in full darkness apart from the very low lighting to show some feature of his face and the sweat on him too, just enough to portray how he is feeling. Also there is an introduction to a young girl also low light that we gain the information is his daughter, she mentions a grandpa and a ghost both which could be significant informations as it is introduced at the start with the introduction of character, also it gives the indication that the main character(the man) is not a believe in the paranormal while the girl is, the references of a ghost im a sci-fi movie is definitely significant and it could be the case when one of them is proved wrong. This scene showed he is a family man and is possibly raising his daughter with his dad as there is no partner sleeping next to him.

The last part of this opening scene does not drop the ball on giving impactful information as the dystopian/suspenseful non-diegetic soundtrack starts to play again and increases intensity and volume coming to a slight pause when the character reaches his window. With the scene being mainly lit on low intensity with cold colours and just enough light to see few features on the man's face the widow flushes the shot with a lightness that is still cold giving a sense that we are in a cold climate but also with the view of a field and mountains. With both the intense music coming to a pause and a setting being given so the audiences are not fully in the dark it creates a sense of security that the character might be feeling as he just woke up from a nightmare where he ‘died’. The camera tracks the character from behind as he has regained the power in this scene but we are still unsure of what he is feeling hence the unseen face, it also creates a contrast of the light from the window and the darkness of his figure drawing all of our attention to the view but also hinting that we know very little about this character and that he is could possibly be a very moral wrong character or be foreshadowing for a bad situation he will not have control over as he is in the dark. The tracking shot then changes into a handheld zoom into the field to convey the setting once again and possibly imply importance of this setting (specifically to the character or to the movie in general). The feeling our character has for this setting is still unknown but with the next shot of a close up of his profile from the side and half lit by the window on the right of the shot and with the back of his head still engrossed by darkness, once again only highflying the his face very lightly but enough for the audience to view as disbelief or a serine state as his stares out onto the field. Another thing that is interesting about this shot is that his face is the only thing really in focus and that the camera is moving quite slowly but noticeably clearly making it handheld. The next shots dip highly into the editing technique of non- diegetic VO(voice over) as the old women we were introduced to before starts to talk about farming and as her voice over is over the shots of the side profile of the man and the field he is staring at suggesting that there is a connection that the two are connected and are possibly family that were as she noted “farmers”. As the women is talking about it from what we assume is the future in a documentary style setup and setting as i previously mentioned, the shots and filming of the man and his setting are enhanced with a docudrama type feel which also suggesting that what is going to happen to this man and his family is going to be a major event that will be renowned enough for a documentary to be made of the situation. This possible cause of this major event is then revealed to be ‘the blight’ and/or ‘the dust’ as the woman mentions the blight killed the wheat in a VO over a shot of the field moving in the wind. While all of this occurs the dystopian soundtrack is being played very quietly in the back behind the VO of the people talking to give ambiance and characterise/enhance what the people are talking about. There is the mention of ‘dust’ and then new people are introduced on the documentary style interview individually talking about the dust, the shots would move from the professional and stable camera work of the interviews to shaky shots of people from the past dealing with the dust with continuous VO’s of the people's everyday life such as a man brushing a immense amount of dust off of his front porch and another man picking up his plates which have been turned over so they wouldn't get dust on them. The shots and description of the dust gave a very real sense as it was people doing everyday tasks such as setting the table but having to adapt to it suggesting this had been gradually and a long term problem.The only thing keep this from being seen as an apocalyptic setup/film would be that there are people in the future giving reassurance that the human race do in fact survive and giving such a huge suspenseful plot point away is risky but it creates a sense that by the end we will not care if all humans survive but the characters that we are introduced to and personally connect with survive. Another plot point that we gain from these interviews front he variety of people being interviewed is that is was a long time ago as there is no variation of age group as they are all older and also that this event did not just hit a small area but was possible international or hit all of america as there is a multiple number of them and they all have different accents talking about the same issue. The danger of the dust is enhanced largely by the description of the measures that people had to take to protect themselves by one lady which is then followed by a man talking about his experience but he clearly has a damaged eye that is bandaged over and as the previous dialogue was talking about the danger of the dust, we as an audience connect the dots and come to the conclusion that the dust is what hurt him. A common theme that i have touched on previously would be the bookshelf that is often in the back or presenting itself in shot and what is also revealed in these interviews is that in each one the background is very low lighting(essentially darkness) with the light lighting on a bookshelf in the back hinting at the importance of the specific bookshelf we saw in the beginning or of bookshelves in general but we definitely know that this is a key plot point as it is manifested in almost all of the first two minutes.