1ST 5 SHOTS OF FILM 3: Bridget Jones's Diary

Director: Sharon Maguire

Production Budget: $26m
Domestic Box Office: $71.5m
UK Box Office: $61m
Global Box Office: $281.9m
Production Companies: Working Title
Distributors: Universal, Miramax
BBFC Rating: 15
MPAA Rating: 
Genre: Romantic Comedy
IP: Pre-built audience from global hit book

Actors: 
Renée Zellweger
Colin Firth
Hugh Grant

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SHOT 1

This is the opening long shot- main protagonist is shown to the audience. It is snowing and the protagonist is holding a piece of luggage to connote she is going somewhere for christmas or New Year's Eve/Day (snow in the winter time, christmas time). The lighting is bleak to connote Bridget's life and how she feels when she goes to see her mother. There is a black taxi in the background to connote the setting (London). While she is walking in this shot, a female voiceover appears in the background establishing the first person narrative; this voiceover provides anchorage of who this character in the shot is. She is saying: 

" It all began on New Years day... on my 32nd year of being single. Once again, I found myself on my own and going to my mother's annual turkey curry buffet. Every year, she tries to fix me up with some busy-haired, middle-aged bore and I feared this year would be no exception."

This voiceover creates no narrative enigma in the film opening at all and gives the audience information (her age, where she is from - her accent tells us that, that she is single and where she is going) immediately into the film. This woman is heading to her mother's annual turkey curry buffet on New Years Day. The fact that the bags that she is carrying are not feminine provides binary opposition between a stereotypical girl. 

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SHOT 2
An extreme long/long shot of village where Bridget Jones is at the moment- on her way to somewhere (her mother's house). The church in the background connotes that the village is quite religious (christian from the cross). Also, underneath this cross are some poppies which connote that this is an British/english setting (attracts a British audience). 





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SHOT 3

This shot is a crane shot, following where the character is going; this connotes that the film is not a low budget film but instead a high budget film (A Working Title film). The house in this shot is very big and the garden is very fancy and decorated which connotes that the people who own this house (Bridget's parents) are very wealthy. There are two bushes which are decorated as swans which connotes that the family (most presumably the mother) is obsessed with love. The mother always goes on at Bridget to find a man. These two swans foreshadow how the mother will be in the next scene of when Bridget steps into the house (going on at Bridget that she needs to find a man/boyfriend). Two swans together connotes love. 

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SHOT 4
This shot immediately tells the audience that there is a different atmosphere completely in the mother's house from the drastic, immediate change in non-diegetic sound to an upbeat, comedic song (this music finally reveals to the audience that this is a a romance but also a comedy - romcom). This shot says whenever she sees her mother again it is always a fake kind of happy and she puts on an act, she hates how her mother sets her up all the time for a date. 

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SHOT 5

There is a sort of dutch angle here which connotes that this house is an uncomfortable, uneasy place for the main protagonist. Also, this dutch angle connotes that she found the hug and kiss from her mother uncomfortable. The furniture and objects in this shot are old fashioned and very ordered to connote that this house is dominated by the mother; this tells the audience immediately what the mother's personality is like. Also, the inside of the house connotes wealth. The father living there may have had no say in any of the design or furniture of this house. The mother's clothing is stereotypical of an old, traditional person. 
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