The music used accentuates the upbeat tone by being a song that the audience will be more than familiar with. The song (even to those who dislike the song) is one that is catchy and even now 30 years on from the death of disco is one that encapsulates what the era was all about. A song with a positive vibe, that isn’t too complicated that anyone can sing along to.
The lighting is provided by the sun as the sequence is in an outside environment. The sun is very bright and warmth / sunny days are attributed to happiness and good well-being.
The perspective we have of Tony from the opening scene is portrayed through his walking style, facial expressions and actions during the opening scene.
After the camera changes from the establishing shot it cuts to an intermediate shot of a train going by on the tracks before cutting again to a close-up of Tony comparing his shoes to a pair in a store front glass compartment. As he is doing this he is bobbing up and down in time with the music. He decides that his shoes are better and then continues on down the road. The purpose of this is to show that he likes having the best accessories he can. He later decides he can do better when he stops outside the clothing store and notices a shirt inside, he then proceeds to put a lawaway onto the item.
The camera changes angles to the front and tracks its way along the road showing his feet walking in time with the music. The camera pans up to show him strutting along arms swinging to the music and all to give a sense of being in his zone. This attitude goes with him having to have the best shoes he can, if he's not the one that people pay attention to then he's have to do something about it. This sense of him having to be the best is regularly revisited through his dancing and the lengths he goes to through partner choice, practice etc.
Several times during the opening long-shots are used to show him approaching girls and making passes at them, however as shown more clearly the second time through the use of a close-up on the girls’ face they turn him down and the strutting continues – he just takes all this in his stride. The addition of these shows he has a high self-opinion and that he is a people person. This is backed up by his interaction when ordering pizza and with his customers, both mentioned further on.
By the directors decision to show more than only him walking along the street we know that he is easily distracted. On the way back from the other paint shop he stops to talk to check his shoes against some others, grab two bits of pizza, put a layaway down for a shirt and try it on with a couple of girls. This shows he is an average teenager in no real rush at all.
When he returns to work and the sequence comes to a close you already get the sense he is a hard worker and liked by the customers he serves and enjoys what he does immensely. He is a people person. This is shown through the Diegetic sound of Tony conversing with the customers.
The pace of the opening sequence also shows no sense of urgency with the beginning establishing shot running for 35 seconds. The shots with of Tony last for reasonable amounts of time - 10, 15 seconds. This can also be attributed to the general use of longer amounts of time between shots in older styled movies. If this movie was created today for the ‘MTV’ era then as a musical there is a good chance the shots would be half the length and could potentially change the mood of the sequence to that of one more fast moving.
Even though the tone does change throughout the film, by different locations and the people he is around it always comes back to this happy, dancey feel that the opening had by the use of disco music and disco era lighting eg. Disco balls etc.
A very thorough and thoughtful discussion of how the techniques in the opening have been used by the director to set a tone. When you focus more closely on the techniques, don't worry if you repeat some of this information: look at my blog to see what types of statements to include. Well done!
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