The opening shot of the whole film shows the two main characters names with the actors names below that. The location of the actors names could tell us something important about the plot of the film mainly the fact that Theron’s name is above Hardy’s suggest that her character is more important to the plot than Hardy’s which is a helpful little bit of foreshadowing in the very first shot of the film.

Shot 1

The first shot in which we see anything is our main character gazing over a dusty landscape with a wreck of a car beside him. This establishing shot gives us a clear impression of who the main character is in this film and while this is all happening there is a narration going on that describes to us how the world got like this from its present state. The establishing shot also features a black dusty cloud hanging over the car that is soon after destroyed and disappears. The foreshadowing is rather literal in this sense. The fact that our main character stands so far from the camera sets up the fact that mad max is a rather mysterious character that says very little.

Shot 2

The third shot that i’m looking at shows the warboys procession of cars and bikes chasing after Mad max as he drives across the blasted wasteland that we saw him looking over in the last shot. The narration is still going at this point and it talks that he is “the only man running from the living and the dead” this hints to us that there is more of a sub plot regarding his past that will most likely be explained further on. The dust cloud being kicked up stops the audience from being distracted by the back ground and helps to highlight the cars in the foreground one of which being our protagonists car. The sloping mountains in the background highlights the dust clouds and stops them from blending into the sky, the gives us a sense of scale and awe and this chase.

Shot 3

The chase is quickly cut short by the pursuers flipping Max’s care and we see a close up shot taken low to the ground of him crawling free of the wreckage but is quickly stomped on by a warboy. This is the first shot where we see are real close up of him and we see that he is covered in long deard lock hair covering the his face keeping the sense of mystery going. The voice over has stopped now and we can hear the shouts of the warboys. The dust again gives the same purpose as before to focus the audience’s vision onto what the filmmakers want us to see. The low key lighting is again serving to obscure his face from us and a lot of the background detail for the reason above.

Shot 4

The next shot is of Max being shaved back at the warboys camp. The lighting has been switched so this time it is shining up towards his face so that we can get a good clear view of his face. This serves as the big reveal for the character after we have been introduced to his story via voice over. The lighting gives the whole scene a dark and creepy feeling. The shaving of the hair is an almost biblical revival of his character as it is featured in many pseudo biblical retellings this can server as Max’s rebirth from a tormented soul to a protector. The blood running from his head perhaps as a parallel to the thorn crown and the pose he is stretched into is maybe a metaphor for the cross.

Shot 5

On his back is tattooed all of his traits ranging from blood type to physical scars and so on. This is a way of stripping him of his humanity and turning him into simply an item to aid others. The shadows around him focus our vision onto the tattoos. The drums heard in the background of this scene help to heighten the sense of fear. This again has a biblical parallel as it was said that Jesus was flagellated before being put to death much like this scene.

Shot 6

This scene has Max being branded with the mark of the warboys again further itemizing him and the low key lighting in the background keeps our attention fixed and the shallow focus further helps to keep our attention on the brand that is coming ever closer to our protagonist. The music and atmosphere in this scene is the same as i stated before.

Shot 7

Max breaks free moments before being branded and runs through the tunnels of the war boy's camp and presses himself against a gate and sees this. This we can presume is the face of one of the ghosts that he spoke about that he is running from. We see the completion of this statement in this scene. The girl asks him “where were you?” again hinting towards a past story that might be explored later in the film.The close up and suddenness of this shot adds to the surprise and the sudden light and clean overall appearance of it pulls us out of the action and into this confusing moment and this allows us to empathise with Max in this scene.

Shot 8

Carrying on from the last shot we see the same girl striding down the corridor with a constantly changing face from her normal face to this demonic skull. This shows the audience that this girl is a figment of Max’s imagination and isn’t really there she is again shouting at Max for not being there. The rate at which these apparitions appear to him this is an important plot point for Max and he feels guilty for what he did. The light shaft cutting across the scene provides almost all of the light in the scene behind the character and there is some artificial light illuminating the front of the girl from a low angle to give her face that classic scary movie look.

Shot 9

This is the final shot of the opening at it has max finally burst free of the tunnel system into the bright clean mountains. The greenery on top of the mountain gives us an impression that the location he is in is different and unique in the story as it was established 5 mins before that there is no water and therefore plants in the wasteland. The low key and high key lighting helps us to empathise with the character. The lighting also servers again to be something that is out of the ordinary as it is white and pure along with the green and blue that makes this stand out as points of interest for the viewer to look at.

Shot 10