Deconstruction of an Opening Scene

Deconstruction of The Cabin In The Woods Opening Scene

  

The Cabin in the Woods is a horror comedy film from 2012 that was directed by Drew Goddard and produced by Joss Whedon. The main actors include Kristen Connolly, Jesse Williams, Chris Hemsworth, Fran Kanz and Anna Hutchinson It is about five college students that spend a weekend in a seemingly deserted cabin in a forest, but it is actually being controlled by a facility that are planning a mysterious ritual.

The camera pans across then slowly pans and zooms in to show a window where a girl in her room, Dana, is walking around and dancing in her underwear to pop music while getting ready and packing. Being in her underwear is stereotypical of horror films and her wearing underwear subverts the 'virgin' character that she plays. 

A low angle shot of Dana makes her look powerful, and there are books in the shot which implies that she is clever. A medium shot that reveals her looking at the book, reinforcing the idea that she is clever and also revealing more about how the character is the 'virgin' of the group.



The opening scene introduces the viewers to all of the main characters which gives them an insight into what they will be lie in the rest of the film. The group are a conventional teenage group that is typical for horror films; there is a jock, a scholar, a slut, fool and a virgin (who usually survives).


The scene is very bright and the people are wearing colourful clothes which sets the tone as relaxed and happy. There is diegetic pop music in the background, which includes drums and an electric piano sound, this is parallel to the happy scene and reinforces the use of bright colours to create a joyous atmosphere.


The text on the screen is red which looks ominous against the happy scene, it is also different to other films which usually use wither white or black text, so it makes it seem unique to other films.


This film is quite different to what our idea is so it'd hard to take inspiration from it, but the opening scene gives us information on how to present the characters to show their role in the film using camera angles and costumes.