This document compares and contrasts the opening sequences of the films Gone Girl and Eighteen. It analyzes how each film uses establishing shots, representations of gender, title sequences, ending shots, sound, pace/editing, and settings to set up the story and tone. Key differences include Gone Girl having a slower pace while Eighteen builds tension faster. The document also examines how each opening reflects different film theories around gender gazes.

1. Comparison between
Eighteen and Gone Girl
Question 1

2. Establishing Shots in
Gone Girl

3. long shot of Eighteen’s main location

4. Establishing shots
• For both films, establishing shots and long shot was used to show the
audience the location of the crime. In Eighteen, the long shot is used to
show the audience where the “crime” of the scene will be happening.
And in Gone Girl, multiple establishing shots was used in order to give
“hints” of the crime in the film, as these shots might represent that the
different locations used was to show where a crime has happened or to
show places where it is closely related to the crime
• By replacing an establishing shot with a long shot has helped us to increase the
continuity of the scene as we are able to have Ali to interrupt the straight when
we are revealing the location, and if an establishing shot was used in this scene,
this will lead to the tension of the audience being lowered as the entrance of Ali
will need to be shown from another shot. And with the longshot we are able to
slowly build up the pace of the scene as well as building up the tension of the
audience at the same time.

5. Representation of Female
Gone Girl Eighteen

6. Representation of Female
• In those to shots, it shows a completely different representation
of female, where in Gone girl, the female character was treated
like an object as the male character was gently patting the
female’s head. Where on the other hand, in Eighteen, the
female cop is leading the way as well as giving instructions to
the male cop, this shows that she is the leader in these 2 roles.
And these 2 shots represents Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory
and David Gauntlett’s empowered female theory respectively.
• In gone girl, the protagonist was introduced with the male
voice over in the scene, however all the character in the
opening sequence was clearly being introduced in each scene
where dialogue applies.

7. Opening title sequence
• In Gone girl, the credits starts appears in the beginning of the
film and the Title was shown on the first establishing shot, and
was ended during the display of establishing shots. However,
in Eighteen, the title sequence appears after scene 2 of the film
and after the title appears, and through this, we can see the
difference between Gone Girl and in Eighteen.
• Gone girl’s opening sequence maintained a slow pace and by
having credits appearing before the title will not affect the
physical feeling of the audience, however in Eighteen as it is
slowly building up the tension of the audience this means that
if credits are introduced before the title appears this will affect
the tension of the audience as thy are very likely to be
distracted.

8. Ending shot of the
opening sequence
Gone Girl Eighteen

9. Ending shot of the
opening sequence
• In both opening sequence ends with a shot of a still
object, this show the audience that the object shown in
focus is very important to the crime of the film, and by
showing this still object, this satisfies the question solving
section of Maslow’s hierarchy where the audience will
need to think and “solve” what is the point of the still shot
of the object.
• However in Eighteen, the pair of red heels has a character
of the Macguffin of the entire plot of the film as the
introduction of the pair of red heels has lead to a
important change of the overall plot.

10. Sound
• In both film, a similar style of score was being used as the
score used in both films is used to connote suspense as
well as building the tension of the audience. However the
score used in Gone Girl has a overall slow pace, while
compared to the two different pace of the first and second
part of the opening, the scores used in Eighteen is
classified as a more rhythmic score while Gone Girl’s
score is more like a orchestral score.

11. Pace and Editing
• In Gone Girl, we can clearly see that they have a slower
pace as the opening of the film is very relax, the overall
opening sequence used a lot of slow and long takes which
helps to allow the audience to blend in to the film easily.
• However, in Eighteen fore the first and second scene of
the opening sequence there are a lot of shot takes which
helps building up a fast pace and building up the tension
of the audience at the same time

12. Settings of the opening
sequence
Gone Girl Eighteen

13. Settings of the opening
sequence
• In the setting of the conversation scene in Gone Girl, a
bar was chosen to be the location of this scene, this show
that the film is mainly targeted to a older age group
compared to Eighteen, where the setting in conversation
scene has chosen to you the room of the character and
this clearly show that there is a age difference in between
two films as they both have different social locations