Deconstruction of The Walking Dead Opening

When making our own opening we want to use short clips of footage scattered thought to make the opening feel more intense. I wanted to focus on ideas that we could possible use when creating these small shots and therefore I am going to do a deconstruction of The Walking Dead opening sequence as it is created through the use of short shots.

The second short clip shown is a door knob being rattled as if someone is trying to get in, this scene is very effective as it creates suspense as to who and what wants to get in. It also creates the question of do they get in? The door looks as if it is aging and the colours used in this scene are very bland as the door is white and the handle is seen to be a brass colour. Not only this, however the shot has also been edited with a darker blurred out frame which emphasise the door handles being the main subject. During this scene there is very little camera movement however the camera does slightly zoom in towards the handle very slowly increasing the suspense of if something is going to happen.

Another technique in which I liked within The Walking Dead opening is the way in which they introduced the main characters. Instead of just showing normal images they incorporated the characters in to normal props such as broken images and newspapers. This is really effective as it follows the style of the other shots shown and allows the opening credits to play smoothly.

The order in which the characters were introduced is also very important to the plot of the story, as I have seen the series; the separation between the first male character (Rick Grimes) and the two other characters shows a separation between them.

An aspect of the opening in which we would also like to include is the zombie eye at 0:46, the use of the eye shows that there is something wrong and also brings a grotesque factor to the opening. The eye moves quickly and quiet franticly which is very gruesome as it is an extreme close up of the eye. When wanting to create these ourselves we will most likely have to use contact lenses, however this will not be enough as someone will have to edit the eye to make the contact lens more realistic.

The Walking Dead opening also used tools that could also be used as weapons such as the thin saw blade that had some material stuck on it. By showing this image the audience will question what is its relevance and what is it used for.  Simple props such as this can be very effective as this item is easily obtain and therefore creates a sense of fear that anyone could use it, not only this however when shown next to other props such as a gun it makes it seem inconvenient.

The opening scene did not only consist of objects it also included establishing shots of where the series is going to be set, there are a large amount of these images to identify that there will be a large amount of travelling doing the first season. Some of these shots included cities, urban houses and a police station which has the American flag outside.

Another idea that could possibly be useful in our own opening scene is the use of a time-lapse; this is also included in The Walking Dead opening scene at 0:18. This time lapse shows part of the day in a big city using a bird’s eye view on what is most likely to be one of the busiest streets however in the opening it is shown to be completely abandoned. If we are to use this in our opening we will ensure to use the time-lapse on a smaller scale as we will not be able to take a bird’s eye view for a time-lapse establishing shot. However time-lapse is a technique in which we would like to incorporate in to our opening.

Throughout the three openings there is no use of diegetic sound however non-diegetic sound is used continuously from the beginning to the end. The sound consists of violin type instruments and cello’s to create the main background music. Now and then the non diegetic sound of a heavy sigh is played before the over layer of machinery clacking together. Then when the title is shown at the end the music fades and the violins play at a lower tone before fading out completely.