Opening Sequence Of 'Little Miss Sunshine'

After viewing many films, I personally found ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ (2006) was most effective and covers many different aspects of media. In addition to this, it also helped me to understand and learn more about elements and devices, such as, the use of sound, type of music, locations, characters, camera work, titles, costumes and many more which highlight the mood, effects and thoughts.

‘Little Miss Sunshine’ covers the genre comedy, involving a family with many difficulties and circumstances. When 7-year-old Olive Hoover realizes she’s invited to compete for the little Miss Sunshine contest the entire family ventures out in their bright yellow camper van to achieve Olive’s dream. However, the family hurdles over many obstacles along the way, but Richard, Olive’s dad reminds the family of one thing quoting “Everyone, just pretend to be normal.”

I chose to study ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ as directors Jonathon Dayton and Valerie Faris use many methods to achieve a distinct memorizing opening scene for the audience. In my opinion, the first scene should naturally catch every viewer’s eye as it immediately gives an impression on the film and sets the initial scene. We are primarily introduced to six characters, ranging in age and gender whom we consider to be close relatives. By instantly being met with the characters, the audience appreciates a small aspect of each cast member as they all individually accomplish a small key gesture of their determined personalities.

Music and sound is a key feature to an opening scene as we can have an idea of mood. We are firstly faced with a blank black screen to appreciate the noted simple song. Amongst the introduction of the characters we are faced with an instrumental song embracing the simple slow violin and piano tune. The tune includes no lyrics to convey a sad mood but also not to draw too much attention from the host speaker’s voice. The song portrays a mellow, cheerless piece, but quickly gets dominated by the clear words from the host of the contest. The effect of this is to allow us to hear the same words as Olive does and to listen to it from her perspective and so the audience can understandably sympathize with her dream.

Personally, I feel the camera work used in the first sequence is successfully achieved and helps us to foreshadow the clever filming that we will seek. The audiences first visual view is an intense close up of a little girl, we naturally realize Olive shortly becomes capitalist for the ongoing story line. Therefore we immediately examine her, as she is the first character appearing in the film. Throughout the opening sequence, extreme close up shots are used when we seek every new character to deliberately be faced with the intensity of reality. 

 

The use of mise en scene in facial reactions and movements are strongly accomplished. For example, Olive’s direct eye contact through her thick-rimmed glasses highlights she innocently longs to be the winner of the contest. We aren’t directly told this but we assume through the successful reactions and gestures.  We understand from her gestures and her appearance, she desperately longs to fit into the beauty world but the audience knows she simply doesn’t. The young girl appears to be holding her stomach wearing a brightly coloured top that highlights her round stomach, and complete opposite of the beautiful girls she aspires to be. We smoothly receive a full view angle to establish the dull, dim location in which Olive seems to live in, appearing to have dark mustard walls.

Using a smooth transition we are met with a confident man encouraging losers to turn into winners, this relates to Olive and helps that strong link form. Similarly we zoom on a close up shot of his top half of his body but from a low angle. The effect of this is to allow him to look more important and positively projecting his speech. We can clearly see the room is once again dull and very bare. The audience can clearly view he is a hard workingman as he is placed in a suit however; during the opening sequence as the lights flicks on we discover an empty audience. This adds a sense of humour to the scene and this positively reassures the audience the comedy there about to approach during the rest of the film.

Effortlessly the cross cut between scenes continues from a black screen folding up to a teenage boy pushing up his black gloves. We clearly see he is working out in his room and the camera work quickly jumps to close up shots of parts of his body; this is achieved for effect to make the audience believe he is working out really hard from the fast shots. We also examine the rest of his room from a gradual horizontal shot implying simplistic colours, which reflect on his character. The audience learns he similarly wants to achieve something like Olive does. His clothes appear to be typical teenage boy clothing, but his top resembles Nietze. The costume designer appropriately dresses him like this and other characters to help the audience understand their personalities, as costume is a huge importance in film.

We are met again with another repeated close up; suddenly the music changes to leading a mysterious and mischievous atmosphere within the bathroom. The directors linked the mood with the music highlighting how curious the character himself is. These suspicions are confirmed when a close up shot underlines him snorting cocaine from his fanny pack. During part of this opening sequence, the mix between secretive gestures, snorting coke and his appropriate era clothing allows the audience to understand his struggle in life.

In response to this opening sequence, the audience seeks the characters belong to a working class American mid west family. For example, costume and interior have a distinct 70’s feel, especially the Grandfather, Edwin hilariously played by Allen Arkin who wears a gold hippie Hawaiian shirt. Throughout the opening sequence there is a subtle, constant beat, almost representing a heartbeat, showing how every character has that pressure building but there’s no lacking in pace, in comic hysterical and touching story telling.