In the opening scene for forest Gump, from the start it automatically shows the audience what type of day it as, as the shot is pointing at the sky and showing the feather fall slowly. It looks like a normal typical cloudy day. ‘Paramount Pictures Presents’ is the first written thing, to highlight the importance that the production company is important.
The setting for this scene is a phenomenal example of setting in the mise-en-scene, the feather then carries on drifting which the camera tracks, the scenery of a town is then revealed, the village looks very small with normal looking buildings, which could be symbolic later on. The clean white feather keeps falling and the rising again depending on the wind and contrasts against the dark trees and sometimes it’s up in the clouds, where it almost blends in completely so we can't see it . The way the camera focuses on it also makes it appear inherently part of this world, an illustration of the metaphor that is the story of Forrest Gump.
The feather falls very soft and smoothly, which connotes against the relaxing melody that is played behind. I think this done to set a scene, and to give the audience a certain mood to get ready for the rest of the movie. There are no diegetic sound, which gives it a fake and surreal tone, and forces the audience to concentrate on the feather.
The feather then falls lower towards the centre where everything is happening. It’s influenced by the movement of objects like a passing car
and person. This is the first time that the audience now get an impression of when it’s set as the old cars help connate this. Even though everything else is moving around, such as cars driving pass and people walking the camera still keeps its attention steadily on the feather in the centre. The feather then rest on someone’s shoulder, but as they walk on the feather then shots back up which makes the volume of the music go up, showing that this is not the feathers journey over.
Throughout the whole of the opening there is just one long shot following the feather. This shows that it’s a long and slow process for the feather to find its finial destination. This could also be symbolic for the rest of the movie and It takes a long time for Forrest Gump to find his final destination.
As the feather then floats down to the ground it slowly rests on someone’s dirty trainers, which once again is symbolic for later on, and the untouched, perfectly clean feather contrasts against this. As the man who sits alone on a bench, slowly picks up the feather the camera follows his hand, reavling he’s wearing a suit which is a bit odd considering hes wearing dirty trainers. When the camera stops Tom Hanks face is finial
shown which is important as he is the main character of the movie. He then frowns unsurely at the feather and slowly puts it in his old, retro suitcase, which is perfectly packed. This shows he obviously is very personal and likes everything to be perfect. He places the feather into an book from his case, and places it carefully into a picture of a sky. This picture could mean that this is the end of his story and journey, he needed the feather to be the last detail in the book.
Because the camera tracks alongside the feather, I’m going to use this as inspiration for my film opening title, as we will have the couple moving boxes and objects so the camera (similar to feather) can track alongside the boxes as there being moved with titles edited on to the boxes. Just giving a symbolic section, as then later in the movie when the couple break up, the boxes will be moved again. Following a similar affect.
