Point 10 - Full Textual Analysis of Film Opening Sequence

Little Miss Sunshine

The opening sequence of Little Miss Sunshine starts with a fully coloured yellow screen representing the colour of sunshine with the music starting straight away. Next, an extreme close up shot of a young girl with big rounded glasses is staring straight into the camera lense with the reflection of a TV screen being reflected into her glasses of a women. This is straight away telling the audience that this is a main character, it then cuts back to a cartoon animation of a yellow bus driving along a road with the name of the actress playing the part. We then see a low angle shot of the girl wearing a red jumper with sporting bands round her wrist with her hands to her face acting surprised with then a quick cut to the TV where the women is doing the exact same gesture when winning a beauty pageant. This is showing that the young girl seems to think of nothing else but winning a pageant and you realise it must be her passion. With another quick shot of the yellow bus moving along you then get introduced to an older man wearing a blue shirt and tie with a close up shot of him talking to an audience of which you don't see but he uses a firm hand gesture when speaking which suggests he's possibly talking in a lecture about a serious topic, suggesting he's a hard worker and quite a serious person. A backwash colour of yellow is shown again with the title of the actors name appearing and then the shot of the yellow bus moving along the road. A bird's eye view shot introduces us to a young male who is doing weights with a simple white t-shirt on and black fingerless gloves, his facial expression is very serious and concentrative giving the feeling that he has determination, which makes sense once you learn about his character in the film. The actors name then appears on the screen with the yellow backwash of colour again and the bus moving. A close up shot of somone sniffing cannabis up their nose is shown next with the camera tiliting upwards after to reveal a much older male with a leather waistcoat and a colourful hawaiian shirt on, suggesting to the audience he doesn't have a care in the world and enjoys life by his care-free dress sense. You then see a shot of him facing away from the camera but you see his face through the reflection of him staring into a dressing table mirror, the same sequence then appears with the actors title and the yellow bus. An older female is introduced next with a still camera shot of her driving in the car while on the phone to someone and smoking out the window, this is creating the idea that she is stressed out and leads a very busy life style as she is using smoking to calm herself down, the animation bus appears again but this time starts to disappear off the right hand side of the screen while the actresses name appears. This is suggesting the opening sequence is coming to an end before one last side shot is shown of a older man in a wheelchair staring directly out of the window in a hospital and a close up shot of his facial expression is shown afterwards as he looks very serious and deep in thought, suggesting he has been through some sort of trauma. His name appears while you see the last inch of the bus move off screen and then the main film title is shown behind the yellow backwash of colour with each word getting slightly bigger leaving the word 'Sunshine' in big capital letters along with 'Miss', before the director's name appears. Then the film begins.

I find this opening sequence works very well through a number of different elements. It is very simple and repetitive and doesn't include any special effects or features. It simply states each main character to the audience and gives them a little background on each one. It also gives you an insight into how these characters all seem very different to each other and with this it urges you to watch more in order to find out what happens next and what their story is. The track played behind the opening title is called "The Winner Is" by Mychael Danna and DeVotchKa and is a nice calming piece of music to compliment the simplicity of what's happening on screen.