Analysis of the opening of The Dark Knight

The first shot is an establishing shot of tall buildings; this tells the audience the location is a city. The camera zooms from an establishing shot into a long shot, of a window on a building. The window is then shot open. A close up of a person who shot the window is shown; this person is wearing a joker mask. A high angle/over the shoulder shot of the man wearing the joker mask is shown, as well as the building on the opposite side. The masked menace then fires a rope onto the opposite building.
A mid shot of a man holding a language bag and a joker mask is shown, with the camera zooming onto the joker mask in his hand. A car pulls up beside him, which he enters. A bird’s eye view shows two men, both wearing joker masks, gliding down the zip wire they shot onto a building.
Tense non diegetic music is used, the music gets louder as the film continues, the louder the music gets the more tension builds up for the audience. Natural lighting is used, as it is filmed during daylight.
An over the shoulder shot in the car is shown. All three characters in the car are wearing joker masks. A total of five people are wearing joker masks. The two people at the front of the car are talking about splitting something between five people. The person at the back is making sure his gun is intact. The gun represents that, whatever they are about to do, they are not afraid of using fire arms. This raises questions in the audience’s heads. Why are they all wearing masks? What are they going to do? These questions will encourage them to keep watching the film.
The next couple shots are mid shots of the people in the joker masks talking about their boss the real Joker.
The following shot is a low angle shot of the three jokers coming out of the car holding guns and bags, the camera then pans towards them walking into a building. This tells the audience that the masked mischief’s are in control. A mid shot of the three jokers entering the building is shown, with the camera panning towards the interior of the building. One of the jokers fires his gun in the air, whilst the other joker takes out the guard. This straight away makes the audience aware of the genre which is an action, as an armed robbery of some sort is taking place. The next shot is a tracking shot of the jokers running towards the counter. What they are robbing is then revealed as one of the jokers says, “Lets go pal, I’m making a withdrawal here.” This tells the audience they are robbing a bank, as you would withdraw money from a bank. Simple editing is used through out the opening of the clip.