San Andreas Opening Scene Analysis

San Andreas Opening Scene Analysis

The first scene we see in San Andreas is a close up of a woman's drivers license which identifies one of our characters in the film, We can vaguely see her name in this shot - "Natalie Dawyer". The camera then cuts to a medium-close up of Natalie and we can see that she is driving calmly and has no worries. We then see an over the shoulder shot of her which makes the audience feel like we are in the car with her, we also however see a car approaching towards her, however she turns round and takes her eyes completely off of the road making us think that there will be a crash. When she turns back around we see the car extremely close but nothing happens, this leave the audience tricked but also knowing that something will definitely happen very soon. We then see a close up of her phone going off and we see she has received a message from most likely a friend of hers, she picks up the phone being completely oblivious to the fact she is driving, the text is about her relationship with a boy which is a typical teenage worry that the audience do not really care about at all - this scene also conforms to the stereotype of blonde teenage girls as being stupid, dumb and careless. This leaves the audience against her and wanting something bad to happen to her because of her stupidity and how she has managed to not be caught in a crash with oncoming vehicles. However once she looks away from the phone she notices stones and small rocks hitting the road, we see this through a POV shot and the editing technique used here was eye line match, from which we cut from her phone to the road. This starts to create a lot of suspense and gives the audience the impression that something bad will soon happen which will leave the audience hope for this.

We then see a medium shot of a stone hitting her cars windshield and cracking it. The use of fairly fast pace camera shots suggests to the audience that something bad if building up to happen. Before the audience have a chance to notice this clearly the camera quickly cuts to a close up of her in the car looking to her left and seeing a rock slide coming down the cliff and taking her car off the edge - due to the audience wanting something bad to happen to her, the director has gone in favor of the audience. In this scene, they have used many different editing techniques to make the fall more intense and dramatic - an example of this is when the car flies of the cliff while upside down and the camera cuts to a medium-close up of her in the car screaming, the camera has used Bullet Time to add effect to the crash and also to show the emotion on Natalie's face. The camera also pans round to the back seat just before the car hits the floor to create an effect which makes the audience feel like they are in the back seat and in the same situation as her.