Film Opening

This is the opening scene to the film "Troy" it is directed by Wolfgang Petersen. The opening scene is set on a battlefield in ancient Greek where there are two armies getting ready to fight for the land that they stand upon . The opening scene really shows the genre of the film because it is obviously set on a battlefield which shows that one of the genre is war, another genre of this film is action which is shown when  Brad Pitt (Achilles) kills the man chosen to fight him which shows from the outset that this film is an action based film.
The main icons in this scene are all the weapons that both armies have which gives us a clue that the film is a war film and tells us that it is ancient times where the only weapons available were swords, spears and shields. Another main icon in this scene is the armor that some of the characters wear because it shows the power of each character for example the soldiers are wearing very average armor whereas the kings are wearing better armor which shows that they have more power and that they are more worthy of survival than the others.
The characters in this scene are mainly men who are all soldiers, you can also tell what kind of class they are by what they are wearing because the higher class soldiers (Kings) are wearing better armor. The two main characters in this scene are obviously Achilles and the guy that he is fighting. You get from this scene that Achilles doesn't really like the king that he is fighting for and that he is really only doing it for the love of his people, we pick this hint up when the King makes a comment and Achilles starts to walk away.
The music in this scene is very important because it creates a mood for example when the tall guy comes out from behind one of the armies the music starts to build up it gives the impression that something big is about to happen and that it reflects the size of the character. Also later on in the scene when Achilles starts to ride into the battlefield the music builds again which gives the impression that something big is about to happen.Also the sound of the army chanting gives us the view of how many of them there actually are and how they all believe in this one person. Finally the camera angles; there aren't many changes in camera angles but that's a good thing because its so simple it allows the watcher to really get into the opening scene and because its the fight scene is so tense and dramatic the watcher can follow it because the camera angle stays the same allowing the watcher to get drawn into it, rather than getting lost.