Above is the opening to the 1997 film My Best Friend's Wedding.
Lighting
The lighting and colour of the film opening is very bright and could be considered 'girly'. It's feminine structure is based on the genre of it being a romantic comedy film about a wedding. The lighting is high key to connote a sense of happiness with involvement of a wedding and the colour pink stereotypically conveys a sense of feminine qualities about the film. This shows very early on in the film that it is targeted towards a female audience rather than a male audience.
Camera Work
The general theme of the camera work used in the title sequence is that the actress playing the bride of the opening is the key element that the audience should be focussing on. Contrary to the film's title, which suggests the narrative of the best friend of the bride, the bride is seen as the most important factor of the title sequence. This could be because a bride is usually seen as the most important part of a wedding in real life so the film is trying to promote the verisimilitude of the media text so audiences can relate. According to the Uses and Gratifications theory, audiences consume media in 1 of 4 different ways. For women, this film could potentially provide an escape from everyday life (entertainment), help them identify with characters and discuss with friends (personal relationships/ social interaction) and/ or compare their own life with the characters in the text (personal identity). There is only one shot within the opening of My Best Friend's Wedding where the bride character is not seen and in the end of the opening there is a zoom in to a close up on her face, backing up my earlier point of her being the central character.
Editing
The editing in the clip has a fluctuating pace. The dance sequences are a faster pace than the parts of the opening which feature the bride character 'singing'. The slower pace makes the audience focus more on the bride, yet again making the audience concentrate on her character representationally showing her utmost importance.
Sound
The song featured in the opening of My Best Friend's Wedding is Wishin' And Hopin' by Ani DiFranco, originally sung by Dusty Springfield. It is seen as diegetic sound even though the actresses are miming the lyrics. The ideology of the song being used is to make it seem as if the bride and bridesmaids are singing the song. With lyrics such as "so if you're lookin' to find love you can share, all you gotta do is, hold him and kiss him and love him, and show him that him care" it is to impressionistically show the bride's love for her fiancé that we can assume she is soon to marry. It also shows an ironic dependency on males and a sense that that is all they care about. The genre of the film is romantic comedy so I believe the directors made the choice for this song to be used in the opening as a funny start to the film. I don't believe it is a serious creative choice and more of an ironic, humorous and light-hearted start to the film.
Mise-en-scene
Again the pink background in the opening instantly injects a message that the film is targeted towards woman or that woman will be able to relate and enjoy the film more than men. There are many generic conventions like the bouquet of flowers, the veil and the wedding dress which impose a strong theme of a wedding, to prepare the audience that the film is centred around a wedding. The bridesmaid's also are wearing dresses to show their characters and highlight the title because their best friend is the bride. The film opening seems as if the bride and her bridesmaid's are preparing for the upcoming wedding because they are practising throwing the bouquet and trying on all the wedding clothing. This is shows the audience the situation and the vintage song may show the classic theme of the wedding or the film itself.
Genre
The irony of the opening which could either be considered to be serious, promoting a very feminine film, or ironic and comedic to show a romantic comedy is going to commence. There are slight changes to traditional which show the bride being selfish and creating a humour for the audience when the bride character throws her bouquet and catches it herself. Usually a bridesmaid would catch the bouquet which meant they would be getting married next but the bride catching her own bouquet implies she is self-centred and is designed to make the audience laugh.
Narrative
The opening doesn't introduce the characters because the four women used in the opening sequence aren't even in the rest of the film so this could easily confuse the audience.
This part of the film opening in particular is very confusing because to an audience member who isn't aware of who Cameron Diaz is it could appear that this actress is Cameron Diaz. This is one of the major mistakes in the opening because it doesn't explain to the audience who the actresses in the opening sequence are properly and might make the audience believe they are in the actual film.
Audience
Considering the opening for this film the target market in terms of gender is women. The age could be from around 13 to late 40's judging by the audience's of most romantic comedies. The film could be loved by most women but mostly women close to marriage, married, involved in a wedding or just aspiring to be married.
Values and Ideologies
Considering the film's main theme is marriage, the opening seems to connote that in a positive light so the audience can expect the stereotypical view of marriage from the rest of the film.
Institution
TriStar Pictures were the creators of this film and this is clearly shown at the beginning of the opening. TriStar are an american subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment are commonly involved in the production of more action-packed or sad films like District 9 and Premonition. This may give fans of TriStar a false impression of what the film could be about if it is a binary opposite of their usual forte.
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