Saving Private Ryan Opening Scene

Opening Scene
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZJANhWizUY

In the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, the camera tracks the actor as he walks along the path. This is known as a tracking shot because the camera follows the actor and it appears as if the viewer is walking along behind him.

In the next shot, the camera is off to the side of the path yet at the same time moves towards the actor. This is a good shot because it gives the audience a different perspective of him walking along and makes it more interesting because there are different angles.

Here, the camera pans from the right hand side of the screen to the left hand side. Note the gravestone in from of the camera. This is because the scene is being filmed from quite a low position. This is good because it puts emphasis on the number of gravestones which represent a soldier that was killed in the Normandy campaign. Also, the camera follows the actor as he makes his way along the row of graves and by doing this, more and more gravestones are shown just in front of the camera. I think the main reason for doing this is because the director, Steven Spielberg, wanted to emphasise how many American soldiers were lost in the fight for Normandy.

As the actor carries on walking along the row of gravestones, the camera goes from being in a quite low position to a very high one. A good way of showing this is that in the previous shot, the camera was quite low down, whereas in this shot, it is rising. This also emphasises the number of graves because as the camera rises, the viewer can see more and more graves in the distance.

Here, the camera is higher than the previous shot. This shows that the camera went form being in quite a low position to quite a high one. I like this shot because it gives the audience a different perspective of what is going on and also makes it more interesting to watch.

I like this shot because the camera is positioned where the gravestone is and where the actor would be looking. This makes it seem as if he is looking directly into the audience's eyes. Also, the camera then starts to zoom in on the actor's face which shows the viewer his emotion.

The camera zooms in until it is focused on the actor's eyes. Here, the audience can see the emotion he is showing because the camera is quite close up to his face. Also, this is a good end to the opening scene because from here, the actor starts to have a flash-back to the beaches of Normandy.