The Raiders of the Lost Ark

In  the opening two minutes of the Raiders of he Lost Ark, non diegetic music is played setting the mysterious mood of the scene. You are then shown an establishing shot of the jungle, which then follows on with diegetic music of the sound of birds tweeting which relate to the setting of the jungle. The music starts straight away showing us the genre of the film before any of the acting starts, the music also fits in well with the scene and entices you in even more. Through Mise- en- scene the characters are shown to be explorers or in some sort of tribe, we see this through the denotations of the characters such as beige shorts, hats, tops, parker jackets and then walking boots, the stereotypical 'explorer', these all connote the fact that that they may be on some sort of a journey or quest somewhere 'exotic' due to their tribal like clothes as well. The characters clothes are also torn and dirty which may suggest they have just been in some sort of fight or have been walking for a while and had the branches of the trees or bushes get caught on their clothes, all of these denotations could also suggest that later on in the film there may be some action.

We then get a mid shot of the characters through the foliage making the setting look quite sinister as if something may be behind the trees and bushes , and then to create even more suspense the characters are constantly looking behind their shoulders creating a sense of fear and curiosity as if they are expecting someone to be there. As we get another shot of the characters walking through the jungle we can see there is an obvious leader or hero as they are the only one with the better clothes on making them different to everyone else, another reason that leads to me thinking that he is the leader is due to the fact he is at the front and leading the way.

We hear a sudden change in he music which turns from mysterious to sinister in a disjointed way as they approach the face of the wall. Diegetic music is used again when you hear the rustle of the leaves drawn away from the wall. When the character looks at the wall you are presented with an over the shoulder shot to make the viewer feel as if you are there with him and part of the crew. As the leaves and bushes are drawn away from the wall bats fly out which again is a diegetic sound creating a spooky effect. Bats are normally associated with dark, scary caves or houses, so from this you can connote that behind this wall could lead to somewhere dark, secret and creepy. The disjointed music also becomes a lot lower creating a different mood to before when it was sinister. A two shot of two men is shown of them looking behind them as if something may be there.

Just to familiarise the audience and viewers again an establishing shot is used to show the setting of the scene of the jungle so that they do not get confused. To end the last two minutes we are shown a close up shot of an arrow in a tree, the use of this shot is to emphasise the object as it may have a significant meaning later on in the film and may suggest some sort of action or danger.