1. The film begins and there is a black screen with just the sound of news broadcasters being played on the soundtrack. This gives us an idea of the world that the film is set in - extremely chaotic. During this, the opening titles appear - they are very basic and simply flash up white for a few seconds on a black background. This keeps the film very simple and therefore quite realistic - the more 'fancy Hollywood effects' that there are, the more that the film seems like a work of fiction. The final broadcaster explains that the youngest person in the world has died - this is of course very strange as there are newly born children everyday...
2. The next shot starts and it is very long - we see the sad faces of the people in a crowd, this crowd is crammed into a small shop at the side of a busy street. They are all staring at something off-camera (we assume it's the news broadcast). All of these people look like they are working class and no-one in particular 'sticks out' - this is due to the bland colours of the clothes they are wearing and the slightly dirty look of the shop (everything is quite dull and grey). A man enters the shop and pushes his way to the front - our attention is drawn to him simply because he is the only person moving in the scene (I love the film-maker as i believe it take talent to make someone stick out in a sea of people that are essentially the same as them). The news broadcast continues and we find out that the youngest person on the planet was stabbed because he "spat in the face of a fan who asked for an autograph".
3. There is then a cut to a point of view shot from the man who came into the shop - we see a television in the corner with the news broadcast being shown to the group. We see that the youngest person on the planet was born in 2009 and died in 2027, meaning that there hasn't been a child born for 18 years - this creates many enigmas... The biggest being "how has this happened?" A musical score begins to play - a number of violins playing a sad tune; this helps set the mood and we feel sad for the people living in this fictional universe - it must be quite depressing living in a world with no future. The people on the news broadcast are also wearing similar costumes to the people in the shop - showing us that the film is actually set in 2027.
4. We return to the shot of the shop full of people, where the man picks up the coffee he ordered and leaves. Now we remain watching this shot for the rest of the opening. The man pushes through the crowd and out into the street - all the sounds reflect what it would be like to be there, the rustling of coats, the muffled car engines from the outside, etc. We even hear the sobs of one or two people being so upset at the news they are crying.
5. Text appears onscreen telling us the exact date - this is very basic and doesn't even fade in. It is simply white text that snaps up onscreen, like the previous titles have done - this keeps the film feeling very realistic and at times a little shocking (due to the fact that we are so used to titles fading in, or other effects being used, that the stark appearance of the titles make us jump a little - this keeps us on edge). All the sounds of the outside world come flooding in through our speakers - car horns, bikes, engines, people, etc. The outside street seems extremely crowded and there seems to be a lot of air pollution coming from the vehicles outside - have people given up trying to 'save the planet'? The time and place is "London, 16th November 2027" and this depiction of the future looks very grim, but realistic. This is due to all of the drab colours used for costumes and many other pieces of mise-en-scene; and the fact that many adverts and modes of transport are more futuristic than now (notice how the advert on the side of the bus moves as if it is on a monitor and the massive holographic televisions mounted on some walls).
6. Throughout this whole scene, the camera is handheld and so we never 'settle into' any camera shot. What I mean by that is that what we see is always changing slightly because of the shaking of the camera. This means that we are quite unsettled throughout the scene due to the lack of formal structure in the shots - informal and loose framing is used throughout the scene. The man we've followed out of the shop stops by an electricity box on the footpath to pour some sugar in his coffee - by this time, the musical score has faded away. The camera gets closer to him and eventually circles around him to face the way he has just come; this is within the hustle and bustle of the busy street. We really feel immersed in the film at this point - we have taken on the role of someone in the street with him... We are simply watching what is happening... We ARE one with that busy street.
7. As the camera finished circling around him, there is an explosion from the coffee shop he was just in. As this happens, a high pitched tone is heard and the man dives camera right. The camera follows him as if we too have dived away from the explosion - keeping us feeling like we are actually on the street with everyone. The high pitched tone is almost overpowering and other than that noise, we can only hear the cries from a woman in pain. Everyone else in the scene dives to the floor too - we are all in shock.
8. The shot then moves away from the man and moves down the street. The camera is handheld and the cameraman is obviously running because the shot jolts around a lot... This also helps keep us routed on the pathway, as we still feel part of what is happening, even though something life threatening has just happened. There is a lot of smoke, we can't see much, and the high pitched noise is still trying to take over the film. Suddenly we see the shadow of a woman in the smoke - her hair and clothes have been ruined from the explosion, and she seems to be holding her left arm in her right hand... But we don't get time to get a good look because...
9. There is a sharp cut to the title screen. The high pitched noise continues, but nothing else - just the basic white title of the film on a black background. This scene is extremely shocking because we get so immersed in the scene and the character we are following, then suddenly something amazingly terrifying happens that jolts the senses. The sharp cut at the end just finishes off the scene with another shocking way of showing the title.
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