Opening Research - Kidulthood

Kidulthood Opening Sequence

The scene opens with a close-up on a ball in a muddy playground, then quickly cuts a series of close-ups on several groups of people, showing all the different social groups in the school. The close-ups on these characters show that they are important to the story as they are all shown in the first sequence. The rolling movement of the camera when showing all the different groups gives the impression of chaos, or a human eye watching all the different groups. The director uses whip-pan when changing between shots to give the chaotic feel. It then cuts to shot of a close-up on a drill this is closed-frame which gives a contrast to the open-frame setting of the playground, another contrast between the shots of the drill and the playground, is that in the playground everything is chaotic and noisy, in the shots with the drill the opposite is occurring as every movement is precise this tells the audience that, this going to be important later in the story as it is a contrast to the main part of the opening scene.

When we cut back to the drill for a second time we see the man operating it, the camera stays on a close-up of his face for longer than anyone else, this strengthens the idea that the drill and him are going to be important to the story. When the camera cuts back to the playground, we see all the people we saw before talking, from their accents we can tell they are from South London, in this sequence there is a  mixture of close-ups and long shots when looking at the different groups. The music behind the entire scene is eerie, as if it was a horror movie, this is not what you would generally expect from a shot of the playground, this sets the tone of the movie.