Research into the Science-fiction "E.T -- The Extra-Terrestrial" opening scene.

 

distributed in 1982 by Universal pictures. It was directed by Steven Spielberg.

The budget for this film was about $ 10.5 million and the box office worldwide was about $ 800 million.

                                   The main cast was:

An interesting fact about the film:

This film was the only nominee for The Best Picture Oscar in 1982 and was also nominated for the best sound effect, visual effects, and editing.

  The narrative that is given to us is that there is an Unknown Flying Object (UFO) landed in the forest and there were aliens. 

We have an idea of policemen coming to the forest and looking for the UFO and aliens, however, they do not find them, because by the time police arrive UFO is about to depart. In the end, every single alien lives a planet apart from one. In the ens of an opening scene, we have a Point Of View (POV) of an alien who was left behind. So, from all the narratives given we can assume that the alien who was left on the Earth is sort of an outsider. By that, we can assume that the rest of the film is going to be about how that alien is trying to go back to his planet and about all the troubles he is having on the planet Earth. I think that the targeted audience will be probably 6+ because the alien is not scary, it is nice and cute, although, you can't really see it. It is also due to the fact that the soundtrack in this opening scene was not very scary, and it is clear that the director did not want the audience to feel scared. It is also obvious through the use of mise-en-scene, it is not scary, it is more mysterious but in a good way.

It is clear that the genre of the film is mainly science-fiction. Because we have things that we don't normally see in the real life. Such as UFO or even aliens.  Science -- fiction film needs to include something that you can not see in normal life, something that is unusual to see. So, in this case, it is alien and the UFO. 

    However, during this opening sequence, we could not see an alien properly, however, we could see some parts of it by which we could clearly see that it was not a human being or any sort of animal.

In this opening sequence, we were introduced to one main character, from some of the posters we can see that there are going to be more characters introduced later on. We can assume that this is the main character because he is in the frame for the most part of the opening sequence. Also due to the fact that there was a POV shot only from his perspective, not from any other person or even alien. Also,m it was shown through the point that all the aliens left apart from the main one, so that suggests us as an audience member that the future plotline will be about that one alien. continuing with the technical areas that have helped to highlight exact this character as the main one, we can see that the non-diegetic soundtrack becomes either denser or calmer depending on how the main alien is feeling. We can not really see it through the use of a mise-en-scene, because throughout the opening sequence everyone who was involved in it was in a forest.

Continuing with analyzing, I decided to use the ending part, when the main alien was running away from the police and found a place where you can see a beautiful view. In my opinion, this scene shows the power of this alien and how he is scared. We can assume that he is scared due to a series of factors, one of them is a non-diegetic soundtrack. At this point in the opening, sequence music becomes denser, louder which suggests that the alien is very scared. Camera work also shows us that the alien is scared, a shot was taken by a hand-held camera movement technique, and normally all shots are either Close-Ups (CU) or just a Mid Shots (MS) but just of backs of policemen and alien, to show that they both are running and are in a rush. Continuing with editing techniques, I can say that. there's been used a lot of cuts, that normally suggests that the action is going at the same time. However, in this situation, it means that the camera changes from a POV  of where is an alien 

 to an Establishing Shot (ES) of how and where the policemen are running. By making a POV shot, while the alien is running shows how short is the alien because he is shorter than some of the leaves from bushes in the forest. As well as the soundtrack in this part of the sequence we have diegetic ambient sounds, typical sounds of what happens in the forest during the nighttime. 

Concluding, I believe that it is a fairly successful opening sequence, due to the fact that it leaves us with a desire to continue to watch a film, with an interest even. Which is what the opening scene about. I believe that it also opens a little about the genre of a film, from the first seconds we can understand that it is going to be a science fiction film because we have an idea of the UFO and how aliens look like in Steven Spielberg's (director's) interpretation.

Here is an actual opening scene of a sci-fi film "E.T -- The Extra-Terrestrial" 1982.