The Boat That Rocked Opening Analysis

The Boat That Rocked 
(Richard Curtis, 2007)
Produced by Working Title (+2); distribution: Universal
Budget:$50m
Box Office: $36,348,748 m (world)

Summary: In 1966, BBC radio broadcasts less than an hour of pop music a day, forcing pirate DJs to take up the slack from boats anchored outside British waters. Quentin (Bill Nighy) is the commander of such a pirate station, overseeing a host of seedy, lusty and dope-smoking DJs, including the Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Dave (Nick Frost), who makes it his personal mission to see to it that Quentin's newly arrived godson (Tom Sturridge) loses his virginity.

Idents

There are 2 company indents:

- Universal (20 seconds)

-Working Title (10 seconds)

1st shot
The first shot is an extreme long shot and also an establishing shot

Titles

There are 14 titles although some of these titles are ones that tell a story. The animated graphic on screen is tuning a radio representing radio dial and the titles are in a strip going across the screen. Each title is positioned differently- this is to avoid dullness. Also the titles have more that one colour, white and red. Each title is transitioned with a wipe edit. This was to create verisimilitude as the film was set in 1966 and now to see a wipe edit being used. In the title "The Boat That Rocked" the words "boat" and "rocked" we're in upper case whereas the words "the" and "that's" we're in lower case and half the size. 

Duration
The opening sequence is 00:03:15 

Sound, Music 

On the working title company ident there is an audio bridge starts. The sound is diegetic because the it is coming out a radio. The music ends when the last title comes on before the 1st shot.

Shot Variety
At the start the shots are fairly short. A shot reverse shot, shot revesrse shot them a cut away show has been used.

Intertextuality + Genre Signifiers 

Narrative + Exposition 

Mise-en-scene: Props, Location, Lighting
The mise-en-scene is a montage with lots of different clips. It is switching between the radio station on the boat and lots of locations around Britain of people listening to the radio live.

The key props that can be spotted is the microphone in the radio station and the radios that the people around Britain are listening to.

Transitioning to the main film 
The opening of the film is separated from the main body of the film by the title which is conventional. The edited footage in the opening links to the audio nicely as he is waving his arms to the sound of the music.

  

Source:http://jayrprodutions.blogspot.co.uk/