To begin with the prologue in the film shows immediately that the story is modernised and everything has changed to today’s way of life [for the benefit of younger audiences]. The prologue begins with a TV screen at a distance with a the TV screen beginning fuzzy without a signal and then picks up a news report taking place, the prologue is read out by a news reporter with the TV screen zooming in closer to the screen gradually, the prologue automatically gives you a sense of a tragedy in the making with words including “death”, “death-marked”, “rage”, “fatal”, “blood”, “foes” and “grudge”, from this point onwards the introduction begins.
Parts of the opening scene on the video are extremely fast moving with flickers of the surroundings including the two houses – Capulet and Montague – separated by a statue of Jesus Christ, probably showing that religion is the only thing that keeps harmony amongst the two houses. The use of zooms and glimpses of scenes of police cars, fire etc are shown to illustrate that there is fury between the two families and this makes you think that something disastrous is going to happen and the opera music in the background also adds to this effect a great deal. The use of text on the screen is very effective. The text appears in flashes on screen, and then it gets faster. This adds to the effect of tragedy and that the tension is rising.
From this, the first scene opens with the Montague boys driving down a road and pulling off at a petrol station to most likely refuel, shortly after the Capulets pull up. The Capulets are portrayed as gangsters and they come across as more tougher and violent people than the Montague’s to begin with, the modern adaption plays a major part in this because of the way the characters are dressed, the Montague boys have a far more laid back easy going dress sense than the Capulets, they wear colourful Hawaiian shirts which are loose fitting, they wear fashionable sun glasses and have comical hair styles, the Capulets on the other hand have a far more stern dress sense and take pride in there appearance, they wear black suits and steel heeled leather boots which are focused on by the camera for several moment along with the car they pull up in which is black and shines. The different images that the two households have are very effective and help the audience to understand who is who throughout the film. After the cars have initially pulled up a confrontation takes place between the two groups of boys
A lot of extreme close ups are used on Tybalt's face in the first scene and this adds to the effect of the tension building up. There are a lot of zooms and close ups used and the shots have a very fast pace to show the action taking place.
