Cleaner 2007

Cleaners is another opening sequence which I really like, it interests me and makes me want to watch the rest of the film. 

• Film starts with a fade from black and we see ‘Millennium Film’s’ logo. 
• Fades to black again and the opening credits begin, ‘Millennium Films presents’ then over the first shot ‘An Anonymous Content production’. I like how this is against the first shot, establishing the location. 

Both an establishing shot and opening credits are conventions that you would expect to see in an opening sequence. 

• The camera then tracks along the street and as we see a woman walking towards the camera, from a long shot, with shopping and flowers we know that our attention is to be on her. 
• Durning these shots actors names are introduced to the opening credits, another convention we are used to seeing in opening sequences. 
• At this moment a voice over starts. It is a male voice so we know it is not the woman who we have just been introduced to. Instead he is narrating what she is doing as he is telling a story about ‘last week’. 

I really like it when voice overs are used in opening sequences, especially if we have not yet been introduced to the character. 

• As the woman enters the dark room, the title of the film ‘Cleaner’ appears in large white letters across the screen. 
• When the woman enters her mothers house, the voice over narrates what the woman is seeing. 
• A close up of her shopping being dropped shows that she is in shock. 
• As the camera tracks through the house the voice over becomes quite detailed in the information he is giving us about this woman. This can make the audience think that he has something to do with her in some way. 
• Through the next montage of shots, and as he says ‘business’ we can get the feeling that the voice over has something to do with working with dead bodies. 
• This is confirmed when he says ‘That’s where I come in.”
• “That’s where I come in” signifies that the next shot is of him as the voice over momentarily stops and the shots of him begin, although we do not yet see his face. 
• We see a range of angled shots to introduce his job but still do not see his face. 
• As he is speaking about his job, it then cuts to a close up of his face and we see that he was talking to someone. 

Through the first 3:18 of the film we have been introduced to the location, the main character, his job, the producers, the actors and an idea of the narrative. All conventions you would expect to see in the opening of a film.