The opening scene introduces the five main characters of the film through their stereotypes: a brain, athlete, basket case, princess, and criminal. Each character is shown arriving at the empty school on a Saturday morning through shots that establish their differing relationships with their families and backgrounds. The costumes worn by each character also reflect their individual personalities based on their stereotypes. This opening scene sets up the premise of the film by introducing the key characters and hinting at why they find themselves in Saturday detention.

1. The Breakfast Club Opening scene analysis
The opening scene of the breakfast club sets up the characters and lets us know who they
are. Firstly, a voice over gives one word definitions of each character’s stereotype: “A brain,
an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal” This shows us that each character would
be placed into very different social categories within a school situation and that that is the
only way the school teachers will see them rather than as 5 individual unique people. This
fits in really well as we know that a typical theme of coming of age films is discovering who
you are.
The film begins with an iconic rock song that plays throughout the first scene during the
introduction of each character it fits in well with the genre because the lyrics are “don’t you
forget about me”. There is also a voice over at first of one of the Students speaking the
letter which he will later write to the teacher later in detention. This along with the music is
non-diegetic; the first diegetic sounds we hear is the dialogue between each student with
their parents this dialogue makes it clear which word from the letter we will use to associate
with each character. For example, when Claire is in the car her dad refers to her “missing
class to go shopping” therefore we know that her character is ‘the princess’.
The first shot appears to be a still image of the high school on a Saturday morning as there is
nobody there yet. We then see a montage of clips showing different parts of the school such
as a close up of time going by on a clock, a piece of wood with the words “I’m eating my
own head”, a blue wall with the words “I don’t like Mondays” chalked onto it and so on. This
sets up the school to be a typical high school with rebellious teenagers and could possibly
have something to do with why the students are in detention on a Saturday morning. As we
see the students we get medium shots of three of them being dropped off by their parents,
and the other two are shown in a long shot as one of them walks to school on their own and
the other gets out of the car aggressively without saying anything. We can see that each
student has very different relationships with their family and come from very different
backgrounds.
It looks as if natural light was used in the majority of the film opening as it takes place
outside the school and it is a Saturday morning. This is fairly typical for a naturalistic coming
of age film as it is believable.
Each costume is reflective of the characters individual personality. ‘The princess’ has lip
gloss and rosy cheeks with what looks like an expensive jacket and handbag, this could show
that she has lived a privileged life and is used to getting what she wants. ‘The brain’ is
wearing a woolly hat that shows he has lead a sheltered life as his mother has probably told
him to wear it because it’s cold. ‘The Athlete’ is wearing a sports jersey which is reflective of
his athletic interests and abilities. ‘The criminal’ and ‘The Basket case are dressed similarly
in oversized coats that look old as if they could be from a thrift shop showing that their
parents aren’t interested enough to make sure that they are dressed properly.