War Opening Scene (Saving private Ryan 1998)

 Saving Private Ryan is a war/action film released in 1998 starring Tom Hanks as Captain  Miller, Matt Damon as Private Ryan and Vin Diesel as Private First Class Adrian Caparzo.

It is about a soldier (Captain John Miller) who is set a task of finding another soldier (Private James Ryan), during the battle of normandy, to bring him home due to his three brothers having died. 

There is a family walking a long a path with the grandad upfront leading the group a few feet in front. He then looks up and and looks into a war cemetery he then walks in past all of the graves and walks up to a few significant ones and breaks down and cries. His family then runs over to him to support him. He then looks up and the camera zooms onto his face. From this opening scene we can see the films story is going to be about him and how he fought his way to get Private Ryan in the battle of World War II.

The target audience for this film would be aimed for adults and the older generation. this is due to the theme being war is more of an older topic and for the elderly it relates to their lives when they were a lot younger.

The genre is established due to the man being elderly and him walking up to the war graves and crying, this shows he has some kind of connection to the war and maybe the graves that lay before him., maybe fort in it. you can see as he walks through the grave yard it is almost like he is reliving his younger life as a solider.

already there has been seven characters, the wife, son or daughter and their partner and their children (three daughters), introduced but one being more significant (the elderly man). the fact he is walking ahead shows he has higher relevance to the story due to him be singled out.

Its starts with a handheld shot that pans up to a mid shot, looking at the back of the elderly man. it then has a mid shot of his whole family. There is an eye line match when the man takes out his camera then we find out what he is taking a photo of (the man). tracking shots are used as the man walks closer to the camera.

I personally think it a really effective opening sequence due to it already effecting the audience emotionally because everyone has a relative that was in the war, or was around during the war. this sets a really good feel for the rest of the film.