A link to the opening:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nZKzsr-hUA
I have decided to analyse the first 15 minutes of Goodfellas, which was a Mafia orientated film based on the book called "Wiseguy" written by Nicholas Pileggi, who also co-wrote the screenplay for the film with Scorsese. The film is about the ascension and descension of three gangsters over the course of 30 years.
Well lets start off, the titles and credits come up first, sliding and fading across the screen with the sound effect of cars, they also pop up in the centre of the screen to make sure people can read them, it then cuts to a shot of the behind of a car, this is very well thought out for continuity from the sound of cars on the titles to a shot of a car, the camera then seems to drive past the car and another title shows up stating the location and year of the up coming scene, in this case "New York 1970".
It cuts to the inside of a car, where I presume the three main characters (we do not know their names yet) are sitting, with the focus of the camera on the driver who is in a close-up shot, the characters are all dressed in suits which signifies importance of some sort, it is a dark scene which puts it at night time, this is when the first lines of dialogue come in, and the accents are clearly new york/italian as you would expect in a Mafia orientated film.
The next shot is a long shot of the three characters outside at the back of the car, it cuts to a closer shot of the back of the car, slowly zooming in towards the boot of the car whilst we hear a banging from the inside, notice all the sound so far apart from maybe a birdtweet here or there has been diagetic, which enhances the seriousness of the film, it cuts back to the shot of the three characters and pans to the right to zoom in on one character pulling some keys out, it then cuts to a match on action of him opening the boot to reveal a person wrapped in sheets bleeding, zooming towards his face and upper torso, it then reverts to the shot of the character, some with weapons and does a pan to follow one character while he stab the peron in the boot, then cuts to the other character who has a gun, comes into focus (Robert Deniro) and shoots the victim, quickly cuts to an over the shoulder shot of Deniro whilst he is still shooting, Deniro then walk out of the scene to leave the victim in shot, showing us him dying. It then cuts to a medium shot of one character who walks up to the boot and closes it, whilst this happens a voice over starts, I assume of the person who just shut the boot, saying "As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster.", this is non-diagetic sound, after this some music starts playing, with trumpets, and freezes on a close up of the characters face.
Following that, it cuts to another title sequence that is the same as before, saying the title of the film, "GoodFellas" which is in red to signify it is the title, with the music still playing it carries on showing more credits.
The shot after the titles is an extreme close-up of an eye, and zooms out to reveal the un-named character who we heard the voice over of, this voice over I imagine are the thoughts running through his head when the man was killed in the boot of the car, which comes back in this scene stating that he thought "Being a gangster was better than being the president of the United States. It then cuts to the outside of a house, and pans to the right, with a title fading in to show it is "East New York, Brooklyn. 1955", it pans onto a long shot of someone walking across a road, the voice over has also started again at this point, it cuts back to a close-up of what I assume is the face of a younger version of himself and zooms in, the voice over is explaining what were the cool things about being a gangster, it cuts to a shot of the side of his head and pans behind him to an over the shoulder shot to show the gangsters he had being looking at, switching the focus from his head to the gangsters on the street as it panned, it then did a eyeline match from him looking outside to a shot of outside the window, where a car pulls up, it then cuts to a shot of the bottom side of the car and the floor, where someone puts there leg down with nice shiny shoes (shows this person is important), next it cuts to a shot of the back of the car like before which shows it going up (like someone has stepped out and weight has been lifted) and then back to the shot of the floor where two legs are there, and does a vertical tilt to a medium shot to show the man behind the shoes closing his car door and walking towards something. It then cuts to the other side of the car to another medium shot of a different man stepping out of the car, he is also dressed nicely to show he is important, but the fact he stepped out second tells me he isn't the most important person, the next shot is a close up of the man who has just stepped outs hand, full of jewellry and chains, to show wealth.
It then changs to a medium shot of a big man, not dressed too well but smoking a cigar who leans upon a wall, like he is waiting for something to happen, for the past minute the voice over hadn't said anything until he joins us again when it cuts to the shot of outside of his window again, he is explaining who has just stepped out of the car and his fellow men. Next up is a medium shot of a different person next to a wall smoking a cigar (cigar represents wealth also, not a cheap mans cigarette), he then walks to the right of the shot and it cuts to a match on action of him walking outside to the street.
Another change of scene here, the voice over is still explaining the story so far to us, it is a shot of the inside of a house which establishes the setting, the costumes emphasize the family in this house aren't too rich, the camera pans to follow the mother walking up to the narrator (as a child), who follows his mum and the camera follows him, including the wobbly walk he was doing to make it seem like we are another person in the house.
A faster change of setting, the shot is of the outside of the house, a long shot of the narrator running to school, then it does a shot reverse-shot of his mother talking to him, after that it doesn't follow him but it tilts up to show the area he lived in, but quickly cuts to a shot of the boy but the camera is behind some poles, like we are hiding from him, he walks towards us and the camera cuts back to a long shot of his mother walking back into the house.
Goodfellas links in with our film alot, with costume, music and iconic things to do with the mafia, we will wear suits in our film to signify importance of characters and some not, the music is exactly what we would like ours to be in our film and other iconic thing like smoking cigars and the accents the characters have is perfect inspiration for us.
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