1. Opening Sequence to
‘The Crazies’
In this opening sequence the establishing shot is a montage of camera angles
throughout a city or town being burnt, destroyed by the flames. The place is
deserted which shows that the setting has ran the people out and has left it as a
burning ghost town. There is silence throughout the first setting the only sound
is of the roaring fire which means it has importance to the story. Afterwards the
screen cuts to black and says 2 days earlier, to which there is a person driving a
car in to a town, the camera jumps to a first person perspective perhaps to
indicate a main character or put you in his position. 1950’s music starts and it
appears as a normal town. The camera stays at ground level once inside the town
to make you feel more like a civilian.
The people walking around, working and going about their normal lives adds to
the location and sense of place as the title crazies would presume that the start
would be normal and eventually become ‘Crazy’. So to the asynchronous music is
more normal at the start and will end up being changed to the mood later. As it
cuts to the next scene there is a ringing noise as to indicate the fact your indoors
and perhaps to tell you they are about to talk and need to get across a message.
They are inside anoffice of a sort and they are obviously working which is yet
again a normal thing to do. Their accents are American, which shows a sense of
place again and is a good place to set it, as they are more clique in their work and
culture. The character has normal everyday family issues, which has, and impact
later when they are worried about other incidents.
To indicate going to yet another scene it cuts to a tracking shot of the car driving
and the birds chirping, which acts as a substitute to the missing music. The police
car turns into a field and has the obvious white markings around the grass, to
make it a baseball game is going on. The cheering and shouting while the
conversation goes on reminds you that you are at a baseball game. The police are
behind the fence, which acts as a barrier from the action, which becomes more
intense, and then they become involved. The game acts as the main source of
action and then moves onto a guy walking out with a shotgun. The man with a
shotgun is obvious a major part of the movie and needs more intrigue. The man
seems to be unresponsive to the policeman and doesn’t know what is happening.
As the gunshot fires the sound is emphasized and is echoed to make it prolonged
to have bigger effect.
The police rushes to see if he is still alive, meanwhile the camera zooms out to a
birds eye view and continues to a computerized shot from an airplane, which is
spying on the man. This is an obvious conspiracy about these crazy people.