Lovely Bones Opening - Gemma

The opening of lovely bones doesn’t follow a typical thriller genre. The opening shot is a long shot of a young girl which allows the audience to see where the shot is taking place, the non-diegetic sound track that accompanies this is soft and includes a piano playing, the character is a young female with blonde hair and is wearing a colourful costume and the colours in all the opening scenes are warm tones, the camera work is soft and gentle in the first scene as it firstly zooms out from a snow globe which is a nice object and just before the titles are displayed on the screen the camera work then zooms back into this object, this suggests there is going to be meaning of this object which automatically makes the audience question what.

The scene then changes to a bedroom setting with the mum and dad characters in bed, this two shot leads into a good way of passing time because as the mum stretches across to turn the light off the medium close up shot of her doing this allows the audience to see a picture of the young girl (their child) beside the lamp, as the light turns off the screen is left black, the light is then turned back on but many years have now passed as the medium close up of the mums hand is now accompanied by a picture of their teenage daughter, this tells the audience time has passed without actually having to physically tell them through showing them years or by using narration.

A hand held camera is then used to create a more  natural feel in the following scene as the now teenage character prances around her room with a camera which she takes many pictures of herself with, close ups are used to show the girl taking the photos but really she is holding the camera herself. The pace of the scene is fast and upbeat which is complimented by the non-diegetic soundtrack, an off-screen narration is also used throughout the sequence of the girl talking, this adds a slight eerie feel to the scenes as her voice is slow and breathy.

The ending narration is powerful as the girl quotes, “before it was all gone” this makes the audience question what is meant by this quote especially as it is said within the first 5 minutes of the film opening and what it might lead to.