Opening sequence evaluation

Opening sequence evaluation - Water World (Kevin Reynolds) 1995
I chose the opening sequence of Water World to study, it starts off with the universal pictures logo in which they edit so the land sinks and the water overflows earth, which is the prologue of what happened to the earth for the film to have its narrative of Water World. I focused on the sound element of this clip. It starts off with a non diagetic voice over of a daunting low a male voice narrating over the universal clip “ The Future, the polar ice caps have melted covering the earth with water. Those who have survived have adapted to the new world.” this syncs with the opening clip of the universal earth’s polar ice caps melting, it also involves the stereotypical bold voice over to go with this blockbuster. On top of the voice over is a small non diagetic sound of tribal drums slowly beating with an eary soundtrack on top, this gives the uncertain feeling of the “ new world” and how it is very wild and jungle untamed culture and world. The voiceover ends and the film title pops up, and the native drums come on heavier with a didgeridoo and a wind chime. They use this in the sound to move the futuristic new world back to the prehistoric survival of the fittest stage of mankind This leaves the viewer in suspense on how this will pan out over the film, as it is a physiological scare to think of the world in water, no land anywhere and taking a 2 million year jump back to basic human emotions.
We then see a low in-between the legs shot of Kevin Costner urinating into a cup which he then turns into drinking water. For one this establishing shot of the main character is so you don’t see his face, this is repeated a lot at the beginning of the opening sequence so you don’t get introduced to the protagonist. This is important to the narrative as throughout the film Costner’s character is a no mad that no one knows, a wonderer which fits in well that you don’t really get to see who he is in the opening clip. The first images of the water world is literally a mish mash hand made boat sailing on the never ending water. It is made up of hundreds of things from tin cans to pen lids. The never ending sea is represented with sound again as all you hear is the sound of waves hitting the “ boat”, the tinkling sound of liquid in Costner’s urinating cup, him gargling the water he is drinking and spitting some out. All these sound effects relate back to the main idea of the film Water world and the never ending fact of water itself is everywhere. Costners costume is made up of any piece of material possible mostly brown, grey and mouldy green , this suggests that he has been on sea for years. Backing this up also the “boat” squeaks and clangs, with the shots of its rusty brown look. This leaves the viewer with many questions how many years has the earth been covered in water. And the biggest one, is when Costner spits water out he spits it into a small potted plant? So if the world has no land on it 1) how did he get a potted plant and 2) how have the few drifters of the earth managed to survive?
All this is formed in the opening sequence of Water world.

Lisette Cooke