Phonebooth: Opening sequence analysis

Phone Booth film poster

Phone Booth is a thriller film, starring Collin Farrell and directed by Joel Schumacher. The plot is about a hard-working man in New York who enters a phone booth and is threatened to remain in there by a strange man on the phone, to eventually reveal all of his secrets. The film starts with a camera shot moving forward through clouds, the titles are on screen whilst this is occurring. They are written in a square shaped, old mobile texting font, in white, which is hard to see as the clouds are also white, therefore it is easily blended into the moving background and less attention and focus is put on the titles. Whilst this is presented there is also non-diegetic music playing in the background of a man singing, accompanied by a few backing vocalists. They are singing the words "Operator, give me some information", which are all connected to the theme of telephones. This makes us understand and coordinate everything that happens, back to the title.

Although the film is a thriller, this is not clear in the opening sequence as none of the use of text or sound represent a thriller. The next scene takes us from outer space passing a satellite and zooms into earth. Inside a phone and then a long shot of a man dressed in a suit on the phone. The setting around him is New York City, Times Square. Its is a very busy environment and loads of people are walking past so you get multiple sounds. We are shown close-ups of the men singing, slow motion, focus pulls on different people on the streets and split screens. Most of these people are on phones, which relates back to the title. A voiceover is put on of a man giving us some information about the population of New York, and information about phones. He then tells us about a phone booth we are shown a long shot and as he informs us about it the camera zooms into the people using it. After we are introduced to a man by a circle opening editing effect, as he is walking on the phone.

Already the opening sequence has made it clear that the film is going to based on phones. The title of the film and certain parts of the sequence makes it very clear for us to see that. Although the genre is not represented in the opening sequence, it does become clearer as the film goes on.