GoodFellas Opening Sequence Essay

Explore the use of film language for effect in an opening sequence to a thriller. How does the director engage the audience?

Martin Scorsese’s 1990 film “GoodFellas” follows the life of gangster Henry Hill as he becomes a professional mafia criminal. The opening scene is a harrowing and graphic example of the casual violence that surrounds Henry. The fact that this film is so real is what has ensured its success.

We open with opening credits, as many great films do. A large white font appears, featuring the names of the actors. There is some faux-diegetic traffic noise as these titles whip about the screen. This is a kind of sound bridge and presents the viewer with an idea of the setting –

Collateral Opening

Very shallow DOF
Grey hair emerges from crowd as if from thin air
Extreme closeup, but no clear emotion - EVIL
POV shot, but shallow DOF means only focused on him - very self-centred man

Mid shots of people going about their airport business - we are reminded of the setting after a sequence of unrelated close-ups, just to ensure that we are still in the same place.
Bag swap! Dodgy dealings. Shot of bags on floor shows this.

Keep crosscutting between the two men - something is about to go down
Close up shots of taxi - takes a little while to actually realise what it is, and its onyl the colours that means we know that this is the same thing.
Motivated editing - we cut between taxi driver and taxi, meaning that we realise he is the taxi driver.
Montage of him getting ready to leave - we linger on the picture of the island, presumably a holiday location, as if this is very important to the man.

Already we have met 3 characters who seem as though they will be central to the plot. Also, we know motives for the taxi driver and have established that at least one of the others is a businessman. We are lead to believe that one of these characters is definitely going to get in the taxi at some point.

Who is the man standing on the scaffold? Bit of a Chekhov's gun here.

The Conventions of the Thriller Genre

Thrillers often create feelings such as exhilaration, suspense, anticipation, nervousness, and (of course) a thrill. It creates these feelings through their use of low-key lighting, enhanced diegetic sound and expression of emotion through tense music. These things are what thrillers are known for. Often these films are based around revenge, or someone seeking to restore equilibrium. Common thrillers can include such themes as terrorism, crime, and sometimes psychological horror, although there is almost always have a rational explanation rather than supernatural. They often aim to create suspense and jeopardy, as well as placing violence centrally in the plot.

Practical Week Evaluation

Our brief was to create a short film called 'The Package' in which some form of item was transferred from one place to another. We had to create suspense and jeopardy.

 We started very smoothly for the first few days, but then we had a major setback; I lost the SD card. This was not good as it meant we had to re-shoot over half of our film. We recovered quickly and I am pleased with the final product.

I have learnt that time pressure is the hardest thing to overcome on a zero-budget film such as this, and we were very pushed to hit the deadline, with me having to come in and finish the editing in my own free time. This was unfortunate but not too bad because I had nothing else to do during this period anyway.

I was operating sound, and I found that it is very difficult to hold a boom pole, the DAR (Digital Audio Recorder), and the cables all at the same time, and ended up affixing the DAR to the tripod. it is also hard to get close enough to the sound source to get decent audio.