The Book of Eli- Opening Sequence

The Book of Eli Opening Sequence
 The film opens with a bleached out shot of a forest with bare trees, the camera pans across and down which then turns the shot into a low angle shot. The mise en scene is a green looking forest, with bits of ash falling to the floor, it is desolate and almost empty. It looks to be winter time as there are no leaves on any of the trees. It looks to be a European or north American forest.

 Low angle shot of the forrest floor. 

 Then the camera angle continues to pan across the forrest floor, revealing a pistol laying on the ground. 

 As the camera continues to pan, we see a hand near the pistol, in such a position that it looks like the hand may have been the owner of the pistol, and they have dropped it on death.

 The camera continues to pan across to the right until it stops at the dead bodies feet, the extreme low angle makes the audience feel uncomfortable as it is very close to something so gruesome. 

 The camera stops moving when we get to the feet of the dead body and we see a cat white almost hairless cat come into focus from within the depths of the forest, it stops to inspect the feet. 

 The next shot is a long shot of what appears to be a man, perparing to shoot an arrow from behind a barrier. The face is covered by a gas mask so the identity is unknown. This is typical of a thriller film as it creates an enigma. Who is this person?

 Then it cuts to a POV shot of the white cat, this is the POV of the person preparing the arrow, the cat is so far unaware and is continuing to sniff and inspect the bodies feet.

 After a few reverse shots, we then see the person release the arrow. It is shown flying through the air in slow motion. The audience's focus is completely on the arrow at this point, as it is the only object that is in focus in the shot. 

An extreme low angle shot is used for when the person picks up the cat that he has just killed. The low angle camera makes the person seem huge compared to the surroundings and automatically gives them status and power within the shot. 

The soundtrack used in this opening sequence is simply the sound effect of the whistling wind, however, it is quite a still and quite wind, giving an empty and eerie atmosphere to the place.