Black Swan

Black Swan

The opening sequence of Black Swan begins with titles which are not shown within the following clip, however after watching the opening of the film via DVD I was able to watch the complete sequence. The film begins with a black out and the titles fade in accompanied by a non-diegetic eerie piece of music which sounds mysterious, and also reminds the audience of ballet as it is an acoustic piece of music which ballet dancers often perform to. This immediately gives the audience an idea of the genre of film they are watching which appears to be dance and thriller combined to make a unique film.

The title shots fade in from the darkness and remain on the screen for a small amount of time, before fading out line by line to give a spookier effect as they disappear. The music seems to get quieter and a quoet evil laugh can be heard as the title of the movie 'Black Swan' appears in shot which also gives it an eerie vibe before fading to black once again. From this point, the shot fades in to a long shot of a ballerina performing in a spot light, however the image is not completely clear, holding on to the mysterious feel of the start. The audience can establish that the actress is a ballerina through the mise-en-scene in the shot as she is wearing a traditional ballet outfit with a tutu, leotard and tights and her hair is neatly scraped into a bun. The lighting is dark with only a dim spotlight on the character suggesting that it is a ballet performance. The position of the character is central showing their importance and grace as a dancer.

 

The shot then changes to an over the shoulder shot of a figure walking towards the innocent looking ballerina. The music begins to get louder and builds tension as the mysterious and dark figure approaches her.

 

As the figure comes into the spot light, we are able to identify them as a male with stern expression suggesting he is going to harm or upset the ballerina, causing tension to the audience as they are unaware of his purpose in the scene. A close up shows the scared expression on the ballerinas face and a sound effect of her exaggerated gasping is heard emphasising her fear towards this unknown person.

 

Special effects are then used to change the costume of the male into a scary looking creature which adds further mystery to the performance and suits the thriller genre as it may be scary to some of the audience. The non-diegetic music begins to suddenly pick up the pace at this moment and this is where most of the action takes place in the scene.

 

A mid shot is used throughout the performance where both the ballerina and creature are together and the camera follows them through their routine to add a sense or mystery to the scene and the build up of the music as the moves get faster creates a lot of tension. The performance becomes more frantic at this point in the sequence and the ballerina's costume changes into white feathers suggesting she is a swan such as in the title of the film.

 

The non-diegetic music then becomes much calmer as the male creature is absent from the camera shot and a close up is used to show the emotion on the ballerina's face which appears to be sad and worried.

 

The instruments in the music then become less frequent as the ballerina 'flutters' off into the distance as the camera zooms out until eventually fading to black just like the begging of the sequence suggesting a cycle in the scene as it ends as it started. This may represent somebodies dream as the fades could represent them going to sleep and then waking up. This suggests the lack of reality within the storyline and the music fades as well as the shot.

Titles

Fox searchlight pictures presents

In association with Cross creek pictures

A protozoa and phoenix pictures production

Black Swan

The titles are written in white on a black background which enables them to stand out and also represents the contrast of the graceful swan and black creature in the opening sequence. The titles are written in a bold and clear font and the fade in and fade out transitions of the titles make them appear to be mysterious.