The opening sequence of 'Pitch Perfect' introduces the Barden Bellas, a group of college acapella singers performing an upbeat song which establishes the film's musical genre. The sequence hints at a collegiate competition narrative, while character introductions and stereotypes set the tone for both comedy and drama. The camera work and music maintain a vibrant pace, emphasizing the centrality of the Bellas to the film's storyline.

1. PITCH PERFECT
OPENING SEQUENCE
ANALYSIS

2. In the opening sequence the audience is shown a group of
young ladies all wearing matching outfits which shows they are
a group or a team. These young ladies then go on stage and
start performing a song to the audience, in the auditorium and to
the audience behind the screen, this is a genre identifier as it
almost immediately breaks into an upbeat song, though it is for
performance purposes it still makes the film a musical. The way
the camera follows the movement of the girls signifies that this
is the group that will be featured most throughout the film. The
fact tat they are a group going on stage shows the audience
that they are performers and is most likely something that the
rest of the film is going to be about.

3. The audience is introduced to a group of ladies known as
the ‘Barden Bellas’ who are an acapella group, we learn
that they are in college and some of them will be leaving
the group due to it being their last year of college. All of the
people in this group are all thin and showing cleavage, this
doesn’t make them a stereotype but it does show that this
group has standards of appearance so that they have a
certain ‘look’. We are also introduced to the two hosts one
of which is an older man and an attractive woman, the
woman is a stereotypical attractive host: perfect make-up
and hair; and the man is well dressed and looking sharp.

4. At this point of the film the audience does not know where
the film is going to be set but they can guess that at least
some of it is going to be set on stage, however they could
always assume that the film will be set in a college because
we are told that it is a collegiate competition. It is because
of this that the audience can guess some of the film’s
narrative, they will quickly be able to determine that a
competition will take place at some point between different
colleges. There is a couple of enigmas used, for example
when Aubrey vomits on stage, and the audience wonder
what will happen afterwards.

5. One of the stars in Pitch Perfect was Anna Kendrick who
has also been in ‘Into the Woods’ and ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the
World’ which could have helped bring in some of her
fanbase to see how she would do in a music based film.
Rebel Wilson was also in ‘Pitch Perfect’, she has been in
other films like ‘Bridesmaids’ and ‘Bachelorette’ in which
she tends to be a comic relief character, mostly used when
it gets too serious. Both of these actresses will make the
audience expect comedy because they tend to play funny
characters so it would be good for comedy lovers and so
should bring in that sort of audience.

6. The genre of the film is musical and we can tell this by the way
that the music doesn’t really stop since the moment that the film
starts. The diegetic music is upbeat and happy which is
stereotypical of the musical genre. The way that some
characters treat other characters badly through insults, “…and
your breath smells like egg.” This makes the audience already
dislike that person without even being properly introduced to
them.
The way the camera instantly tracks the movements of these
girls shows that they are the main group that the film will be
based around. The pace of editing tends to be quite slow but
not dragging, it does speed up a little when the girls is running
to be in the right place because she is late and the camera
doesn’t track her movements but instead has little shots of her
running between shots of the act who are currently on the
stage, the audience then see her get to where she needs to be.