The scene I decided to deconstruct and examine was the opening scene from the first Pirates of The Caribbean movie. Where the main character, Captain Jack Sparrow, is first introduced on screen.
I’ll first post all shots with a description of what they are then delve into the structure of them.
Here are the shots in order:
The entire opening scene of the movie is a great introduction to the character we will follow throughout the course of the movie and franchise. Without a single word, we understand this character well simply due to the way it is shot and carried out.
Starting with a slow reveal from behind, a low-angled long shot that slowly transitions into a medium close-up shot from behind. Showing us what he sees or what his goal is in the distance.
After that, the same shots are almost repeated, a long/medium shot, this time from the front to a more medium close up shot to show the face of our hero. Here it then quickly cuts to another low angle medium shot of him carrying out a sudden action and into a close-up of him bucketing water out of his boat. This then cuts to a wide shot to show his entire ship, which is rather small, and his frantic actions to keep the water out.
It then abrublty slows down in action to a somber shot of him reacting to some hung pirates, a medium close up shot to show his reaction to this. From here, it carries onto an iconic scene of him once again the top of the mast in an extremely long shot to show this boat is now sinking entirely. Slowly zooming further out to a wider shot to capture the environment he is in and exactly what he will be walking into.
The scene ends up a close-up, not of his face, however. Instead, it is a low-angle close-up of his first steps onto the dock from his now-sunken ship.