Close analysis for the opening of Divergent.

A long shot is used to introduce an empty wasteland.

The camera then pans to show an abandoned ship which suggests to the audience the land must have been like this for a long time, as water must have been there at some point.

The lighting throughout the opening is quite bright as it begins with a sunrise. This is significant as the audience is being introduced to a new place on a ‘new day.’

The camera continues to pan to show a fence around a city. This suggests isolation and already makes the audience question why there needs to be a fence. Is it there for protection from the outside? If so, what’s out there? Or is it there to contain what’s on the inside?

From the very beginning to the view of the fence is one cut.

The camera then zooms into the fence and shows what is behind it. The opening sequence mostly uses traditional continuity editing apart from when the camera goes over the fence, it cuts suddenly to a closer shot of the city. This is the only place the film sped up slightly.

An establishing shot is used to confirm the location and a title is added to show that it is Chicago. The audience then become aware that it is se in the future as that is not what Chicago looks like today.

It continues to zoom in on the city and the audience can then see destroyed and abandoned skyscrapers. Again, this makes them wonder what happened and what caused it.

A low angle shot is used to emphasise the damage of the city and cuts increase throughout the opening between the different angles of the buildings.

A high angle shot is used to introduce the population of the city. The use of costume contributes to the viewer’s understanding that it is futuristic as there appears to be different groups in society and that the population seems to be very divided as groups of people are wearing similar things.

For example, a group of people dressed all in yellow.

And here there is a group of people dressed in black and white.

The shot of the tram makes it appear to be realistic (even though it’s set in the future) because the trams are used in Chicago today, which again confirms the location for the audience. The use of this close up shot is significant as they become an important part of the story for the main character later in the film. The only diagetic sound used is when the tram goes past on the track.