Jaws Opening Scene

This is the opening scene of the film 'Jaws'

Camera

The camera work in this scene consists of many different angles. There are the long shots at the start and end of the scene, to show the scenery is exactly the same, despite there being an incident in the middle. There are close ups to her face and medium shots of her body as she splashes about in the water. There is one over the shoulder shot when she first runs into the sea. It really emphasises the point that she is isolated with the long shots, and the underwater shot are supposed to be a view of the shark as it closes in on the woman.

Editing

There are no special effects in the scene, but the editing is about the transitions from shot to shot. For example, the long shots have a transitional medium shot before going into a close up of the woman.

Sound

The sound makes this scene absolutely brilliant. The non-diegetic sound changes the scene completely. It is contrapuntal because it is a usually happy and cheery song, and even the mood is good but in the end the woman gets eaten by a shark. It gets louder just before she finally gets pulled under, and it just makes the scene very ironic. The sound of the woman laughing is also ironic, but we know more than she does at time, because she is not aware that there is a shark on her.

Mise en scene

The only character we see in an unnamed woman. Like I said earlier, because we only see one woman it makes us seem like she is alone and isolated in the big ocean. Her costume is just a bikini, which just signifies she is going into the water. The lighting matches the scene well, it is quite dark but we can tell it's about the evening time because we see the sun setting in one particular shot. When the camera goes underwater, the lighting goes a lot darker and this is reflecting the bad nature of what lies beneath the surface. The scene is shown in the evening which is the end of the day, this could link to the life of the woman in the scene, because her life ends due to the shark. We are unaware from this scene exactly who the actress is, so we can't make a judgement, also there is no visible make up or artwork. There is only one prop which is the buoy sitting in the water as the woman is attacked. This is significant because at one point she clings onto, before eventually being dragged underwater.The setting is the sea, although the exact location is unknown. From the title of Jaws, we didn't know it was going to be about a shark, but this is answered straight away because the woman is running straight into the sea.