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Taken

The opening of the film starts with footage of a homemade video recording. The occasion that is taking place is firstly established by a close up of a colourful red party hat that has 'Happy Birthday' written on it in bright yellow large lettering. The next shot then estalishes the identity of the birthday person, as the camera pans right, to the head of the table and then zooms into an medim close up, on the small female sitting on the end in a party dress and plastic princess tiara on her head, excitedly opening up her birthday present. The diegetic sound of laughter of young children, playing and having fun can be heard over the soft and slow paced non diegetic sound of the music playing.

The credits now start to appear on the screen to the right hand side. As though not to distract and take away from the footage being presented to the viewing audience. This not wanting to interupt, shows the importance of this video footage to the film and the reason why it is the first scene that we as the audience see of the film. More deeper information is also presented to the audience during this home video, as the bond between the mother and daughter is also shown by the body lanuage used. For example her mother always being positioned right by her daughters side, with a protective arm around her while she celebrates her birthday, and the fact that her mother is the only person who she interactes with in the video, as though no one else in the party is significant to the mother, daughter or camera person filming.

The only dialogue used in this homevideo footage is used to convery the young childs emotion and happiness about her horse figurine present. Mother asks 'Do you like it'. The child responds by simply smiling and nodding conveying an excited and pleased emotion.

The camera then shakely tracks forward to the childs mother presenting her daughter with a lit birthday cake until a medium close up. A 5 candle is the only one on the cake and this is done to make it clearly visable to the audience the age of the child. The positioning of the cake is also specific to make the number clear to the camera and the audience ensuring that this piece of information cannot be missed. As she puts the cake down on the table the footage is cut up in as though multiple photographic frozen images all being played to create the look of movement. The non diegetic sound of knife blades being sharpened against each other are also played in sync with the chopping of the image. This convention is usually used in thriller films to allow the audience to remember certain images and also to add some intensity to the sequence.

The camera then zooms in until it is at a close up position on the young girl as she leans forward and blows out her candles. This scene has been edited to make the blowing out of the candles a trigger to the next scene, linking the two together by making her blwoing emphasised in sound and so as though she is blowing the memory out of the males mind. The adjoining scene is a medium close up of a male suddenly waking up from sleep, and from the surrounding mis en scene it can be seen that he is in a dark room alone. The way in which he suddenly wakes up connotes that the previous scene was either a dream or memory of his past. By having these two scenes together a vital piece of information is shown and then when the male is introduced he is quickly established as the main character.

The camera then zooms out until, a long shot of the male from across the room establishing his surroundings of a living room in a house and he sits on the sofa in the dark. The credits then contiue but only at this point is his real name presented on the credits and it freezes there next to him for a while to add that he is the main character in this film. This is very unconvetional of any film as usually the main character is introduced first at the start of the naming credits. The credits then continue to roll as usual, but this time they start to appear at the centre bottom of the screen, also adding to the specific way in which this male was introduced. The male then switches on a table lamp, only allowing minimal light into the room, as this conveys a serious tone to the scene and establishes a serious tone to the rest of the film. The non diegetic sound of the piano music now starts to get louder in tone as he stars longingly at the photo which he holds in his hands.

The only diegetic sound that is heard in this scene is his sighs as he excepts his missing the female and places the picture back down on the side table.

A medium shot is used as he gets up and leaves the room to get ready for the day. The camera hangs back and does not follow him, it then zooms into a close up shot of the photo he had been looking at and reveals a female sitting on a horse smiling happliy at the camera.

The words of the title of the film then appear again to the right hand side of the screen and photo 'Taken' The placing of this title of the film connotes that the female in the film has been taken, by either death or kidnapping and that the rest of the film is going to be based around her safe return. His acceptance of the situation also shows that she may have been missing a long time as he does not seem angry or sad, just missing her more than any other emotion.