Dark Knight opening sequence

This is the opening scene of the Dark Knight (2008 Christopher Nolan), the scene begins with a forward pan over fictional city Gotham which will remind the audience of New York city. The slow zooming pan allows the audience time to guess what may be happening at the start of this film. It zooms in a glass building when suddenly a window smashes and the scene cuts to a medium close up. The man appears to by holding some sort of weapon ans is masked as a clown, this makes the audience wander what has he got to hide where as more regular cinema goers may correctly guess a bank robbery. The music in this scene is very fast tense and repetitive which suggests the urgency of these men. We cut to a long shot of another man holding a bag and a mask with his back turned to us, the camera zooms to a mask. The events seem to be very well planned out and more members of the audience will now suspect a bank robbery which connotes a crime or thriller genre film. The signifier for this is the tense music as well as the costumes of the characters, all wear dark clothing and we do not see their faces. The big close up of the mask builds tension suggesting the element of action. This element is confirmed as the scene uses cross cutting to show the two teams of robbers preparing. We cut to a medium long shot of a suited man in his office, this appears to be the bank manager and we believe that he is a good character of key significance. This is further shown through a very long shot where we see him shoot through his window killing one of the robbers. The emergence of this main character and violence through weapons signifies the crime thriller genre and we hope for him to be the hero in this early actions scene. For the next few seconds it appears for the manager to be triumphanthowever he is demoted to the floor and the robbers seem to be on top. The following shots are of the money being stolen before a long shot of a confrontation between two of the villains features. E can tell by the tones of their voice which character is the main one, the one on the right speaks with a calm horse tone compared to the edgy panicking voice of the gunman. More action follows when a bus burst through the wall sending the weaker villain to the floor. The use of levels further shows which of the characters is in control where the main villain towers over the floored one and with the drivers help loads the bus with money. A high angle long shot then shows the bank manager sprawled across the floor, the camera shot shows the audience that the manger is powerless, small and in no way in control. This is further shown by the placement of the gun at least a meter out of his reach. He yells out the villain who retaliates by walking over to him aggressively but slowly and crouching beside him clearly showing no fear. An over the shoulder shot shows him place some sort of gas canister in the managers mouth. We cut to a big close up of the villain as he removes his mark revealing a painted white face, lips smeared with red paint and panda eyes. The character is very intimidating and some audience members may back into their chairs, the dark lighting on his face especially on his eyes shows us the character is evil, he then causes the string attached to the gas canister to open it releasing what appears to be deadly gas which intoxicates the manger. Expertly in a way that the audience despite being shocked are forced to admire he escapes in a yellow bus and a very long shot shows him camouflage into traffic of other school buses.