Inspired By Legally Blonde
We decided to take a closer look at the opening sequence of Legally blonde, as although it conforms to a completely different genre, it uses the same idea of showing a girl getting ready without revealing who she is. It is interesting to see the types of shots used!

It begins with an out of focus ECU of the hair so at first the audience cannot completely make out what it is. The camera then slowly zooms out as Elle, the girl combs her hair and we see her perfectly manicured nails. This idea can be reused in our opening sequence showing the Psycho woman’s long red nails, which could connote love as she is getting ready for a romantic meal as well as danger and blood. We could also maybe show her red bracelet to tie in with the theme of red. It the cross cuts to her cycling down the road but we do not see her face still. We too can cross cut to the feet of the guy walking down the road simultaneously as the girl is getting ready.

At 53 seconds there is also a shot of Elle shaving her legs which is like our shot when the girl steps out the shower. We were thinking of showing her red toe nails as well building up her character to be quite elegant and sophisticated as opposed to the pink and girly Elle. In this shot the camera is also placed at a low level which I think is quite effective.

Then again it cuts away to her cycling down the road. The director has used steady tracks for this as well as POV shots when she looks around which we too could try out when the guy is walking down the road. At 1.09 there is the BCU of Elle putting on her tiffany necklace. We plan to have a similar shot of the girl putting on a red sophisticated necklace to match her elegant dress. We also plan to have MCUs and CUs of her tying her dress at the back and putting lipstick on.

At 1.22 there is a nice CU of Elle painting her nails. The thing I noticed with this was that there is great use of mis-en-scene to match the chick-flick genre. We can see nail varnishes, a hair brush, make-up brushes and lots of pink things on her dressing table which tell us about her personality. Likewise we can also have objects like elegant perfume bottles, red nail varnishes, red lipstick, a jewelled notebook and a photo of the girl and her boyfriend on her dressing table. This would show that she is quite romantic and classy. At 1.34 there is a nice forward track of a girl walking which is a useful shot to look at when we film the girl in our sequence walking out of the bedroom, and how we can use the two walls on either side as a frame within a frame. There is also nice continuity editing here, where the camera switches angle and continues to track from behind and bunch of flowers. We could use a shot like this but shoot from behind a vase of red roses instead.

At 1.40 again the director has made great use of mis-en-scene showing all Elle’s creams hair-dye, nail varnishes, fluffy pens, photo frames and a teddy bear. It shows the importance of setting the scene and mood as well as the significance of every object in a shot. There is a nice tilt shot when Elle puts her blusher on, which would be good to use for variety in our sequence. I also think the High angle shot of Elle putting her shoes on is important because it is clear to the audience that she is ready now, so the order in which we plan out shots of the girl getting ready has to make sense (i.e. Starts with stepping out of the shower…ends with putting some elegant shoes on). I also think a shot similar to the one at 3.00 seconds would be good to use as the establishing shot of the girl in the shower, but without the characters there.

I think the main thing we can get from this sequence is the way in which Elle has been shot getting ready and the director’s use of mis-en-scene. I think the idea of using pink throughout the sequence is really effective as it acts as a theme bringing the surroundings, objects and characters together under the girly genre. As we are planning to do an opening sequence for a horror film, red is one of the obvious colours to use as it connotes, blood, death, murder, danger etc. Therefore inspired by Legally Blonde, we thought we should have a running theme of red in our opening sequence to bring it together and conform to the horror genre.


Red things in our Sequence

-lipstick
-nails
-necklace
-earrings
-bracelet
-wine
-light
-tie
-roses

(you guys can add to the list if you come up with anymore =) and also I’m not sure how to link the video because it’s not on YouTube but we can work that out later)
-Aarti