Mission: Impossible Opening

The film opens with an extreme close up of a match burning and lighting something, as fire connotes danger and trouble this immediately suggests to the audience that it will have some elements of action involved, simultaneously there is non-diegetic sound of up-tempo music playing that also helps inform the audience that the genre of the film is action.

After this, there is then a montage containing various scenes with many different camera shots, such as close ups, long shots most notably within the montage there is a lot of jump cuts placed throughout it, which zoom into characters faces for a brief period of time, this is used to show the characters facial expressions but also throw the audience off a little and get them surprised at the amount of action in the film. Another prominent scene within the montage is when the car explodes, this is a common convention of action films and again restates that it is an action film.

In addition, there is a close-up of a facial recognition system within the montage, a common convention of action/spy films is that they have advanced technology and back when this film was produced the facial recognition system would’ve been classed as extremely high-tech for that time period.

As the montage comes to an end, a new scene begins with a close up of a man holding a photo of a woman, the camera then proceeds to zoom out and pans left and the audience see the backdrop which is the interior of a plane, this tells the audience that the man on this plane is an important person as it also appears to be a private flight. A more dulled and diluted version of the opening music, hinting to the audience that there is still more action to come.

A few moments after this, there is a mid shot of a flight attendant conversing with the man, at this point the music has completely stopped and this informs the audience that the conversation they are having is an important one. The man picks a tape to watch, however as he begins to put in the tape the camera zooms in greatly informing the audience that whatever is on this tape is crucial and imperative information. It then cuts to a low angle shot of the man taking out the screen to view the tape.

There is then a series of shot-reverse shots to show the man's expression as he watches the tape, as the tape contains classified information and the man's emotion doesn’t change the audience can assume that he is used to this lifestyle. The tape then self-destructs and the man begins to smoke, this tells the audience that he has been in this business for a long time and shows that he is experienced in this field of work.

It then fades to a long of a city in the horizon, and this is used to show the audience where the film location will be, it then proceeds to lower itself until the audience can see a street and the audience can assume this is when the film properly begins.

00:06 - 00:09 “Paramount Pictures Presents” - Establishing the company who helped produce and distribute the film and as Paramount pictures is a large firm this will make the audience know that it is a good quality film

00:10 - 00:12 “A Cruise/Wagner Production” - Crediting the production team behind the creation of the film

00:19 - 00:20 “A Brian De Palma Film” - Title appears to show the audience the director behind the film and so audience familiar with his work will be more enticed by it. 00:30 - 00:31 “Tom Cruise” - Crediting a big hollywood actor and so fans of his will be more intrigued by the film but also shows audience that they have big budget to create the film as they hired a major hollywood actor

00:45 - 00:48 “Mission: Impossible” - Clearly stating the title of the film to help the audience understand the nature of the film and what film they are watching.

02:57 - 02:59 “Based on the television series created by Bruce Geller” - Tell the audience the what the film is based off of and if fans of the television series are more intrigued to watch it.