Film Opening - Forrest Gump

The scene begins with the Paramount Pictures logo on screen, however with no sound, and this stays on screen for a duration of 3 seconds, and at 0:03, 'a Paramount Communications Company' fades in at the bottom of the logo. The logo fades out at 0:07, and at 0:09, the film itself fades in, and we can see a blue screen, which turns out to be the sky, and a feather floating in the centre of the frame. We are then shown our first glimpse of the location, when we begin to see buildings in the shot. This is a unique , yet very clever idea for introducing the set in an interesting way. This feather is the McGuffin of the film, helping further the narrative and keeping the narrative continuing at a good pace. At this point, a piece of music titled 'I'm Forrest...Forrest Gump' starts, as a well choreographed crane shot begins, which continues for most of the duration of the clip. At 0:12, 'Paramount Pictures presents' appears on the screen for a duration of 3 seconds, and the feather can be seen spinning in the background, behind the writing. From 0:17, 'A Steve Tisch/ Wendy Finerman Production', 'A Robert Zemeckis Film' and 'Tom Hanks in' appear consecutively, up until 0:30. At 0:31, the title of the film 'Forrest Gump' is finally shown on screen, in the centre of the frame

From 0:37 to 1:21, we continue to see the names of the cast appear on screen, as we continue to follow the feather on it's journey, and as an audience, we hope that it might lead to a vital character of the movie. At 1:21, we see our first glimpse of some people, but we don't know if any of these will be of any importance in the film.

We are still following the feather until it lands on someone's shoulder at 1:34, and we as an audience automatically assume that this character will be of some importance in the film, however these initial thoughts are soon scuppered when the man moves and the feather blows away, and the camera continues to follow it.

The camera continues to follow the feather as it narrowly misses being crushed by several cars, and we are yet again shown a shot of a man in a white suit, whom the audience is shown more of than the previous man that the feather had landed near.

The feather moves closer and closer to this man in the white suit, and eventually lands at his feet at 1:56. The use of the shot when the feather lands at the man's feet allows the director to control how quickly the identity of the man is displayed to the audience. We then see the hand pick up the feather, as the camera pans up the man's body, stopping at his face. This is the audience's first close up glimpse of whom

they assume to be the main character. The man then opens the suitcase next to him, pulls out a Curious George book and places the feather in the back of the book. He closes the suitcase, and the camera pans back up to his face, as he looks on into the distance. The audience then hears the sound of a bus, and a wide shot is used as the bus pulls up. As the bus passes along the screen, we see the number 1981 written on the side of it, hence communicating the time of the film to the audience. The scene ends with the bus pulled up at the bus stop, and the man sat on the bench, presumably waiting to get on the bus.