Opening scene of I Am Legend

I analyzed the opening few minutes of I am Legend as this film is continuously creating tension and suspense and I wanted to research what techniques we could use for 'Once upon a time in London'.



The film starts with the voice of two newsreaders debating about a sports team in New York. It then cuts to a typical news channel screen, with the presenter in the centre and ongoing news messages scrolling horizontally across the bottom of the screen. The frame of the shot is reduced to give the effect that you are watching an actually news programme. The newsreader introduces a nervous looking blonde lady who, through her dialogue (hesitating), is shown nervous talking about the cure for cancer she has discovered. Plus when she answers the question of 'Have you cured cancer?', she gives a nervous sounding 'Yes. Yes we have'. The shot of the lady speaking cuts very quickly to black with a sound effect which creates tension and shows to the audience what the lady just said may not be true.


The next scene is straight away surprising to the audience. Its a long shot of a highway flooded with water with cars and debrie on the slip roads to the side. Also the Diegetic sound of sea gulls is surprising as well as you would not usually hear sea gulls in the centre of New York. The next sequences of shot continue in this trend showing New York abandoned and uninhabited with the sound of wild animals in the background. The shot then Changes to a birds eye view of a street and the noise of a fast car can be heard. The shot cuts to the inside of the car and the first thing you see is a gun. This shows that who ever is driving may need to protect himself. Will Smith is shown wearing a Black jacket and not looking happy as he drives. In the passenger seat is a Alsatian behaving well whilst sticking its head out of the window. A flock of birds fly up at them from the unmaintained road, which again puts the question in the audiences head. Why is New York like this. The scene continues with Will Smith speeding through the streets until he is spun out of control because of a heard of deer. Again, this seems strange to the Viewers. He chases after the heard with rapidly changing shots to give a variety of angles to the viewer, showing the car speeding through a park. An over the shoulder shot is used as he points the gun toward a deer whilst driving. The pursuit carries on until the deer finally get away and Will Smith stops the car. A medium shot is used which shows Will Smith staring longingly in the direction of the Deer.


Tension is created with the fast paced changing of shots and the sudden break in silence of Will Smith driving into the heard of Deer. An interesting opening Scene to a film.