The opening sequence of Superbad features animated silhouettes of the main characters dancing to upbeat funk music. This engages the audience through the bold contrasts between the silhouettes, catchy music, and psychedelic visuals. It also provides insights into the characters' personalities and hints that their clashing natures may cause conflicts. The sequence subverts stereotypes by portraying the teenage protagonists as cheerful rather than moody. It also establishes that the film will involve a party based on the dancing association.

1. Superbad Opening Sequence
Analysis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5cMERD5S40
Sophie Bell

2. About the Opening Sequence and Film
The film ‘Superbad’ is a light-hearted social realism comedy film staring Jonah
Hill as ‘Seth’ and Michael Cera as ‘Evan’. The ‘uncool’ high school seniors who
have been best friends since childhood are forced to deal with the fact they
will be separated when they go off to different colleges. The film centres
around the pair in their quest of purchasing alcohol for a graduation party in
hopes that it will impress the girls and they will finally lose their virginities.
The opening sequence is an animation featuring the silhouettes of Seth and Evan
dancing to ‘too hot to stop’ by the Bar Kays. The sound track is rather ‘feel
good’ and connotes funkiness, parties and being young. The sequence has a
physicadelic, pop – art themed style, it features bright, bold clashing colours.
These colours change as the sequence goes on and add to the 70's feel, as the
pop art culture was at its biggest then. They transitions are made by using
bold shapes such as stars.

4. How has the director/producers tried to engage the audience?
The bright lighting in this o.s emphasizes the boldness of the contrasting silhouettes of
the two characters which makes it more ‘eye catching’. The body language of the
two characters whilst their dancing is interesting to the audience as it can give us a
basic idea of their personalities., for example, Seth’s body language whilst he’s
dancing appears to be more confident and bold, this contrasts with Evans which is
more reserved and less confident. Seth can also be seen to undermine and correct
Evan. This represents their personalities throughout the film, Seth is an
overpowering, loud character whereas Evan is a shy, polite boy with low
confidence. This foreshadows the possible conflicts that could arise in the movie.
The outline of the costumes the characters are wearing represent a casual, young
look which would appeal to a teenage audience. The colours shown in this scene
could be representative of different emotions, such as red representing anger as
the pair have a fall out during the film, as well as the love they have for each other.
The yellow could represent the general cheerfulness and light heartedness of the
film as a whole. The soundtrack is definitely engaging as it is very catchy, loud and
upbeat. I think this music choice , from 1960’s soul funk group ‘The Bar -Kays’ , is
quite unusual as you wouldn’t stereotypically expect it to be in a modern, American
high school comedy film however it seems to work really well with it. The
psychedelic visuals and funky music combined heighten the audiences sensation of
happiness.

5. How have the director/producers used
of subverted stereotypes?
The producers have not really adhered to any stereotypes In this opening
sequence. I think that the pair are actually shown to be rather dislike the
stereotype of teenagers. Instead of being shown to be aggressive, moody
and lazy they are shown to be upbeat, cheerful and energetic. This suggests
that the boys are not going to conform to the stereotype throughout the
movie. It could be pointed out that the fact they are dancing and having fun
could represent how the stereotypical teenager enjoys drinking and dancing
at parties.

6. How is the story developed and what can we
infer from the first two minutes?
The plot of the film is centred around a party, this could be established from the
opening sequence as the boys are seen to be dancing which is generally
associated with parties. From this association we can infer that the film will
involve a party. The story could also be seen to be developed by what we can
infer from the characters personalities and interaction with each other. The
characters body language establishes their clashing personalities. This
juxtaposition can give us a foresight into what the characters interactions
will be like throughout the movie as well as the conflicts that could
potentially arise from this.