Blade Runner

Blade Runner

As Blade Runner begins, the audience is positioned above the hellish, smoke filled city, with an extreme wide shot from the camera. This works well to establish the scene and to slowly introduce the audience to the environment in which the rest of the film will be set; an industrial wasteland with fire being expelled from buildings and cars flying in the sky. Combined with the extreme wide shot, the camera is tracking forwards into the city, creating space and drawing the audience closer to the heart of this dystopian world which the viewer is spectating. Occasionally, as the camera is panning forwards, an extreme close up of an eye is shown. Within the eye the audience can see the bright colours of the eye mixed with reflections of the flames which they are looking out onto. The eye becomes a motif for the film and the establishing shot does well to introduce the audience to this as it contains enough information to entice the viewer and touch on enough themes - identity, humanity, judgement - for it to be of importance.

From looking onto the world, the audience can see it is futuristic and has been the victim of an incident which has shaped it to become the dark, polluted place it is now. Aside from the towering industrial buildings which litter the vicinity, the camera gradually lures the viewer to a large pyramid which represents the power and control of the city. The pyramid is easily the biggest thing introduced to the audience so far and projects a large beam of blue light into the sky. By using blue, a 'cold' colour, the director is telling the audience that the people in control are cruel people and sets an uneasiness with the viewer by the way it is juxtaposed with the dark reds and browns for the rest of the scene.