Mean Girls Shot by Shot Analysis

The film starts with a low angle shot, giving the impression that the parents are looking down at a small child. The camera then tilts to their level, as the protagonist of the film, Cady, stands up. This gives the film a comedic effect, as the people watching make assumptions about the age and height of the character, and are then proven wrong. The shot is then projected over the shoulders of the two parents, at Cady's face. A medium shot then shows the whole family, and then medium close ups as the father takes the picture. A wide shot is used to also show the house as well as the family as the voiceover starts.
In the shot of the girl at the spelling bee, the camera zooms into her face until it is at a close up. The shot of the five boys is a medium shot, and doesn't change in that clip. The next clips are stills, as if they are photos of her life in Africa. As Cady walks into school, we are shown another over the shoulder shot, this time only her mum's shoulder. It also does a few brief point of view shots as Cady walks into the crowd, then flicking back to a medium close up with selective focus on her face. As she walks into class, there is another over the shoulder shot of her over a classmate's shoulder. this continues as she talks to the classmate, then goes to an over the shoulder shot of the classmate from Cady's shoulder, then to a wide shot of the two standing in class as people go past.

Step by Step Analyis

Here is an example of a shot by shot analysis of the opening scenes of Jaws.

Jaws Shot By Shot - Part 1

View more presentations from Rob McMinn.

Filmmaking Techniques

This video is very useful for learning about camera angles, special effects and sound effects, all things I will need to know for when I create my movie introduction.

Analysing Film Openings

The movie Se7en has some very effective opening credits:



From the very beginning the music gives you a feeling of unease, because it is vey broken and distorted. You can already tell that this movie is likely to be quite scary. The font used is quite flickery and it imitates handwriting. The use of close ups on the character's hands gives a sense of mystery, because you know what they are doing, but you don't know what the character looks like. The character's use of razor blades and needles also show the viewer that the movie is either horror or a psychological thriller.


I'm not sure that I would like to do my film opening in this genre, because I think it would be too easy to do, and I'm also not a fan of the genre, so I would not have much of an experience of similar films. I also hate being scared, so this type of genre would not appeal to me.

A genre I would prefer would be a rom-com or action movie. However I know this will be difficult to research for because there aren't many examples of these on YouTube.

A good example of a film opening that isn't horror would be Moulin Rouge, because it gets straight to the point, telling you the ending but in a way that makes you want to continue watching. This film isn't on YouTube, but if I find it I will edit this post including the video.