Analysis of opening 2 minutes of Sleepy Hollow

• Sleepy Hollow is a 1999 American-German horror film directed by Tim Burton. 

• The film begins with a short clip from Mandalay Films of a tiger coming out of the jungle which then turns into their logo. This tells us straight away that Mandalay Films is the production company for this film. 

• The screen goes black and through white mist we see "Mandalay Pictures Presents". An eery singing begins in the background and this gives a creepy atmosphere already. The text then fades away into darkness. Next, we see another production line come through the darkness with a white mist, "Scott Rudin/American Zoetrope production". This also fades away. 

• Then, we see "A Tim Burton film" come through the darkness with mist and the creepy singing stops but background music is still present, it is low and deep as if building up to something.

• The first scene is a close up shot of what we presume is blood dripping from above. This makes us think there has been a murder or a death and sets up the whole film from the beginning.

• There is then a close up of hands linking together. One hand seems like a young woman's and the others an old man's, both of their clothes are old fashioned so we know that this was set a long time ago. The hands linking together could also symbolise a pact or a secret that these two people made. This could link to the 'blood' we saw before. In addition, we also see a "last will and testament" which adds to the thought that a death has occurred. 
• Next, we discover that what we thought was blood dripping turns out to be wax for a stamp on the will. This shows that the audience had a pre-conceived idea about what the film was like before we saw what it truly was, this may have been thanks to the creepy music and misty darkness at the beginning. 

• The scene then cuts to horses and a carriage riding along a path at night time. The darkness and the mist is like the beginning when the production and director were being shown. This creates an eery and scary atmosphere. There is diegetic sounds of the horses galloping and the thunder and lightning. The thunder and lightning is used for pathetic fallacy and this foreshadows that something bad is going to happen. There is also non-diegetic sound which is the intense background music. In the carriage is an old man who is vulnerable so this could show that something may happen to him. On the side of the carriage is the same stamp that was on the will so we see that the man at the beginning holding hands with the other character is probably this man.

• We then hear another dietetic sound of a sword being pulled out and then a slice of a knife. However, we don't see what is happening until the old man does and this is a good technique because then the audience only see from the character's point of view, so when the old man looks out of the carriage, we see that the man riding the carriage at the front has been beheaded. The music is now loud and booming. 

• This is a good first couple of minutes of a film because it gives the audience some idea of what the film is about and the type of genre it is, in this case, horror. It also leaves the audience wanting to know more about the person that beheaded the man and why he did it.