This document provides an analysis of different micro elements used in film openings through various shots from the movie The Dark Knight. It examines shots such as close-ups, medium shots, long shots, and extreme long shots and how they are used to connect or disconnect the viewer emotionally. It also analyzes other elements like pace, performance, camera angles, sound, mise-en-scene settings, decor, props, costumes, and figure expressions to build tension and suspense or provide context about the characters and location. The document uses these film techniques to deconstruct how the opening scene of The Dark Knight engages the audience.

1. UNDERSTANDING MICRO ELEMENTS IN FILM
OPENINGS
By Fahim Alim

2. CLOSE UP
This is a close up of a man in a mask about to rob a bank. The
reason why the director used a close up shot of a man in a mask
is to connect the man with the viewer and hides the emotions
because he is wearing a mask. This disconnects all emotions with
the viewer to try and say that they are bad people who will hurt
anyone who gets in their way.

3. MEDIUM SHOT
This is a medium shot of a man whose pointing a gun at people, trying
to shoot them. You can see the emotions in his face and they show that
he has a powerful face and he knows what he’s doing. His clothes also
resemble that he works there, because it is smart.

4. LONG SHOT
This shot is a long shot, where you can clearly see the setting of
the movie opening, which is a bank. It is significant because They
are wearing masks and their body language shows that they are
robbing the bank. This would make the audience feel agitated
because they know what the general movie is meant to be
about, people doing wrong at the start and a hero, which is the
Batman, saving the day. They must wonder how long the robbing is
going on for and when the Batman is going to show up.

5. EXTREME LONG SHOT
This is an extreme long shot of a man whose holding a gun as well
as reloading it because he shot someone. This is ambiguous
because in this camera shot, it shows him getting ready to shoot
someone, which therefore might make the audience think that he’s
bad. Although, he is really trying to protect the bank and get rid of
the robbers by shooting them.

6. TRACK SHOT
A track shot is where the camera is mounted onto a rail, but
the camera itself doesn’t move, but the rails it is mounted on
does. This scene is where the camera moves forward and
pivots towards a vault, to show the robbers POV (point of
view). This would connect to the audience because it shows
the audience that the vault is the robbers initial target.

7. PAN SHOT
A pan shot is the camera moving horizontally. This shot shows the
front to the side of the face of a robber, which identifies the emotion
in the character, even though the character is wearing a mask. This
connects to the audience because they would want to see the
emotions of a person robbing a bank, to see why they are doing.

8. TILT SHOT
A tilt shot is where the camera moves vertically instead of horizontally. In
this scene, the tilt shot is to show that the masked robber is putting an
item in his pocket and picking up his bag. This is significant to the
audience because they would want to know why the robber is picking up
the bag and what is inside the bag. We can also tell that the robber has
heavy machinery in the bag due to there being ropes on the side, like a
pulley mechanism.

9. ZOOM
A zoom shot is when a camera is static, but the image goes in and
out. This signifies that the shot being zoomed is important, which also
shows more detail. It also gives the audience the idea at how
important the character actually is, and that he will show up later in
the upcoming scenes.

10. CUT
A cut in editing is when the director shortens a scene by deleting the
film sequence. This is used to cut out unimportant parts of the movie
that doesn’t have any significance to the film. In this scene, the scene
was cut from people sliding across from one building to another. They
cut out the parts where they all aligned in a row because it didn’t have
any significance to the film.

11. PACE
Pace is the rhythm in a film. It is how much activity goes
on in the film. Batman: The Dark Knight has a lot of pace
throughout the movie opening, to build suspense and
make people feel like they are in the movie, even though
they aren’t.

12. PERFORMANCE
Performance is the physical and vocal expressions where
the characters react with each other. In this scene, the men
are talking with each other about the shares of money. They
seem like they’ve already done this before because their
vocal expressions are calm and they don’t seem to feel
agitated within their voices.

13. HIGH ANGLE SHOT
This high angle shot shows that the person in the shot isn’t very
important because the camera is above him. This is to show that
he isn’t very important, and that the audience are more
important than the person in the shot.

14. LOW ANGLE SHOT
This shot shows robbers landing on top of a rooftop, which shows
that they are powerful and everything comes down to them in
their plan. The audience would feel less powerful to them
because they would have to look up on them, and they would feel
that they shouldn’t due to the masked men being
robbers, therefore criminals, and criminals are frowned upon in
societies norms and values.

15. DIEGETIC
Diegetic sound is the sound visible on the screen or implied. For
example, in the above scene, the man is shooting his shotgun. I
know this is diegetic sound because it is clearly in the screen
and the director clearly implied that there is meant to be a man
with a shotgun shooting. Also, the people in the bank are able to
hear the sounds because they all flinched when the blasting
sound went off. Most sound effects are added post-
production, which they try to make as real as possible to engage
the viewer.

16. NON-DIEGETIC
Non-diegetic sounds are the sounds where only the
audience/viewers can hear. In this scene, the music builds up
higher and higher to create more tension between the viewers
and the characters in the scene. The music stops because the
person is saying something important as well as something
may alter his intentions.

17. MISE EN SCENE SETTING
The above picture is the first setting of the movie, The Dark Knight.
It shows an extreme long shot of the city ‘Gotham’ which I know is
Gotham City because all the Batman movies are set in Gotham
City. It also helps the viewer understand where the scene is taking
place and where the events are also taking place.

18. MISE EN SCENE DECOR
In this scene, there is a normal man doing his normal work. I know
this because you can see in the left background that criminals are
running around un-harming the civilian. Also, there are
phones, papers, computer screens, which show that there would be
more people in the office and that they wouldn’t be very important
because they would have to share an office. It also shows that the
people are just normal people leading their normal lives.

19. MISE EN SCENE PROPS & COSTUME
In this scene, the props are a mask and a bag. The mask resembles that he’s going
to hide his face later on, because he’s not wearing it at that time. The bag might
resemble tools to open something or to enter a building illegally. I know this because
with the mask in one hand and a bag in the other, it seems like the man will commit a
crime, as well as the man in the middle might be one of the main characters because
it shows the character directly in the middle. The mask also resembles the costume
because the person in the middles posture bad, meaning that he’s going to do
something wrong. The man in the middle is also wearing a suit, which means that he
will be able to blend in the bank in the next few scenes without alarming anyone.

20. MISE EN SCENE FIGURE EXPRESSION
This scene shows a woman frightened because a man is
pointing a gun at her and it has never happened to her before.
Also, the woman is an ordinary woman whose probably never
had anything like this happen to her. This can relate to the
audience because people have probably never experienced
being robbed at a bank, so it shows that even normal people like
them would be able to get robbed at a bank.