Kill Bill. Volume 1

The whole of the opening sequence of Kill Bill is in black and white, this has been used to make it feel like the past and also makes the setting feel cold which fits the scene where the women gets killed.

The screen fades to black and text appears on screen in white;
‘Revenge is a dish best served cold.’

By using this quote it grips the audience and gives them an idea that the film is going to be about revenge. This is ironic as we learn what happens in the rest of the opening sequence about why the girl gets shot.
The sound used at this point is heavy breathing and whimpering of someone who seems to be in pain, scared or upset. The heavy breathing and whimpering creates suspense as we don’t know who it is until they appear on screen, this sound is digetic as the character and the audience can hear it. No soundtrack is used at the beginning of the opening until the title sequence appears at the end of the first two minutes which then turns to non digetic sound.

There is a quick cut from the plain black screen to an Extreme Close Up of a women laying on the floor, with black and white lighting as if it is old, showing as I said before that it is probably in the past. She is lying on the floor with a cigarette butt next to her on the right and bits of glass.
There is around ten seconds of her lying on the floor crying, which is used to emphasis that she is distressed and upset and create an atmosphere for the audience.
The women lying on the floor has a veil on her head showing that she may have been getting married but we never find out where she is or why she is there or if she actually did get married.

The crying and whimpering builds up more and more and gets more aggressive as we hear heavy footsteps walking along a wooden floor. We can hear the footsteps before we actually see them walking towards the women on the floor.
There is a quick cut to a Close Up of some cowboy boots and a panning shot is used to follow the person walking towards the women. It looks as if it is a man walking towards her, but we never see his face. There is no urgency in his footsteps which shows that he is not in a hurry which is strange as she has blood all over her face and sounds like she is in pain, maybe he has something to do with her been hurt.
There is another quick cut back to the women and the man places his foot next to her in the bottom right corner which shows that he is standing over her. The camera shot is again an Extreme Close Up of the women’s face showing her emotion.

The man starts to talk to her in a calm voice;
‘Do you find me sadistic?’
Meaning does she think he likes pain.
He shouldn’t be asking questions, he should be helping her which again builds on the story that he is not there to help her and has something to do with her covered in blood.
The man then starts to wipe her face with a handkerchief that has a named embroidered on to it – ‘Bill’. This is strange affection towards her as he doesn’t seem to be helping her.
Throughout the whole of the time that the man arrives on the scene the audience is given clues to show us why he may be there and who he is, for example, not rushing to help her or the handkerchief that has the name ‘Bill’ embroidered on and also when he is wiping her face we can see his hands that a wrinkly showing that he may be old.
He then starts to talk to her again teasing her and making her more and more upset and angry and leaving her in pain.
‘I bet I could fry an egg on your head right now.’
Which helps reveal that she is angry and that he knows that she is angry and wants to make her angry?
Also when ‘Bill’ is talking to her he calls her ‘Kiddo’ as if they know each other giving us more clues towards the revenge part that was shown in text at the beginning of the opening sequence.

We then find out that it is over something to do with a baby as she says to him urgently,
‘It’s your baby’
We now know how they know each other, but while she is in the middle of saying this he shoots her in the head.
There is a loud gun shot and it quickly cuts to black screen again to the title sequence.

The title sequence consists actor’s names and the producer of the film. The last part of the title sequence is the title of the film which appears 2 minutes after the film has started to give the audience time to understand what the film is about:
‘KILL BILL – volume 1.’
When the title of the film appears the soundtrack, ‘You shot me down’ starts up, this is ironic as ‘Bill’ has just shot the women in the head.

In the opening sequence of Oceans 13 we can not specifically tell that it is a Crime film but by the characters, setting and the situation that the main characters are in it seems like the genre of a Crime film. In addition we seem to meet two of the main characters and learn what kind of situations they get involved with. We also learn that the film is about revenge from the first opening seconds of the film with the quote that appears on screen.