How do film techniques create meaning in the opening sequence? part 4.

>Music! This is a very important technique, as it adds a lot of meaning to the sequence.

The music is a very dramatic and fast paced theme. It helps to determine mood and genre for the film.
The pace of the music is one of the aspects that can change the mood, by changing the speed to a slower tempo, you can go from intense action flick, to lovey dovey romantic comedy. It is very important to have the perfect music in the opening sequence. The genre is set, and as with composition, transitions and camera movement, allows the viewer to understand the type of film they are going to watch, and either entice or put off the viewer, ideally the former.

The music of the opening sequence starts out quiet, but fast paced, with stringed instruments, a trumpet now begins along with the string instruments, creating a very intense feeling. The music gets louder as the opening credits reach the important screen shots throughout the sequence. Varying levels of volume and layers of different instruments are used throughout the sequence depending on the image or name being shown. For instance, and important screen shot of an important event from the previous film, for example, of Peter Parker standing in front of Ben Parker's grave, the music is quite intense and loud, as this is a very important theme and issue in the film. There are no lyrics in the music, which I think, adds to the dramatic effect and the focus of the images or credits showing during the opening sequence.
This music is recognisable as a Spiderman theme, because of the combination of instruments and the tempo and other factors in the music.


(Spiderman sountrack cover)



Spiderman 2 is an action/drama movie, and its opening theme has some of the typical points that most action films will have in all of their opening themes, the fast pace, cressendos, and changes in volume, that all match up with the images, or footage playing at the same time. All of these pieces put together creates the perfect opening for this type of film.