When you first see Edward he is upstairs in his office away from the party. The walls in his office are just plain white with not a lot of decoration and he is wearing a plain grey suit which is quite dull and lifeless this is a signifier that he is a businessman and that he doesn’t like to wear bright colourful clothes and that he prefers to stay wearing neutral colours.
In contrast the first time we see Vivien we can see straight away that she lives a completely different lifestyle to Edward. The first part we see of her that we see is her underwear when she is just waking up. We don’t see her face until the next shot of her when she is getting out of bed. When she gets up she puts on some jewellery but it looks very cheap and tacky, this contrasts which the type of jewellery the people at Edward’s party were wearing. Once Vivien is out of bed we see what sort of clothes she wears at night when she is out on the Hollywood Boulevard. She puts on an all-in-one outfit which is a white top which is very short and very tight on her. It is attached to a very short blue skirt. She then put on some knee high black boots but when she is putting on the boots she had to use a safety pin on the zip to help pull it up and keep it in place. Also she coloured in the heel on one of the boots with a black pen. These two things signify that she isn’t very rich and that she cant afford to buy new boots to replace the old ones which are starting to break.
By meeting the two characters in this way it hooks the audience because you see two completely different people that dress and live in different ways and the audience will want to know if they will meet each other and how it will happen.
The location at the beginning of the film is very important. The party is at Edward’s lawyer’s house, which is in the Beverly Hills. The house is very big and it looks posh just like Edward and his friends. This party is a big signifier because it shows us a lot about Edward’s character. The first time we see Edward he is on his own in an office on the phone to his girlfriend. Edward decides to leave the party quite early, when he is in the car driving down into the Hollywood Boulevard we see a big shot of the Hollywood sign in the Beverly hills this hooks the audience because when the audience sees this Hollywood sign they know where the film is set and also when people think of Hollywood they think of opportunities, fame and celebrities so the audience would want to carry on watching to see what happens in the famous city.
At the first shot of Hollywood it is light and then gradually it gets darker and the lights get turned on in the buildings, it then shows the prostitutes on the side of the road in the city. This shot of the city is a big contrast from the party that Edward was at a few minutes ago. This change of atmosphere would hook the audience because they would want to know what was going to happen now that they have been introduced to both sides of the story.
You can see how rough the Hollywood Boulevard is because in the background you can see a hotel and on the aluminous sign only the H and the O are lit up on the all other letters the bulb has gone and they are already black, later on in the film we find out that this is the hotel where Vivien lives. Also on the side of the road there is a man holding up a sign that says ‘Maps of stars homes’ this links in with the whole idea of fame and celebrities that is always thought of Hollywood.
The camera shots are very important in the opening sequence of the film. The first shot is a close up of someone’s hands doing magic tricks with money; this signifies that Edward and his friends have lots and lots of money and also there is a voice over that says ‘It’s all about money.’ This would hook the audience because they would want to find out what the man was talking about and also they might not understand to start with why they are doing tricks with money so they would want to carry on watching so that they could find out what the man meant.
The first camera shot of Vivien is her underwear when she is in bed. The camera pans up her body but we don’t see her face until a few seconds later. This would hook the audience because they would want to find out more about Vivien. The camera shot then turns to some pictures on the wall. It is of Vivien and her boyfriends but all of the men’s faces have either been scratched out or cut out. This is a signifier that just like Edward Vivien hasn’t had very good relationships.
When Edward is in the car and he is driving down into the city we see a panning shot of him in the car driving past the Hollywood sign in the hills. This shot is there to establish where the film is set. While Edward is driving there are lots of cross shots between him and Vivien. As Edward gets closer to the city the cross cut shots between the two characters get closer. The cross cutting shots build up tension because you know that somehow the two characters are going to meet when he reaches the city, you just don’t know how. The cross cutting shots are close up shots of Edward and Vivien normally just show one part of the body normally the face this is a good technique for hooking the audience because you cant see the whole body and you are wondering what is going to happen and how they are going to meet.
When we first see the city it is a crab shot. As camera moves over the city it shows what is going on and showing what sort of people come out to the Hollywood Boulevard at night. We can see straight away that the people in the city are in complete contrast to the people at Edward’s party, the people in the city are a lot more roughly dressed. There is another close up shot of hands but this time it is people exchanging money for drugs unlike the people at the party that were doing magic tricks with money.
When we see the prostitutes on the street outside buildings there is a shot of the Hollywood walk of fame and it shows Carole Lombard’s star, it then shows people walking over it like they don’t care its there. This is because they live there and it is an everyday thing to them, they’re not in Hollywood for the fame and celebrities they’re there for the money.
The next time that we see Vivien she is ready to go out, we see her walking out of her apartment but when she sees her landlord asking some people for their rent she goes back to her apartment and climbs down the fire exit because she cant afford to pay her rent. While she is doing this we see Edward driving in his car there are more cross cut shots, this builds up tension because Vivien is about to go into the city and so it Edward so they are getting closer and closer. Also the song ‘Wild women do’ is being played this also builds up tension and hooks the audience.
When we first see the city there is a sign that says ‘Hollywood Boulevard’ this sets the scene so we know where Edward is going and where he ended up, also where Vivien works.
The main characters are introduced right from the beginning of the film. At the party the first time you see Edward you know what type of person he is. He is a very rich, popular businessman. The director managed to show this by introducing him after people had been talking about him asking where he was, this also shows us right from the beginning what sort of people he interacts with.
The biggest signifier about Edward and what sort of character he is, is at the party in the first few shots. Also when it shows him on the phone breaking up with his girlfriend it signifies that he cant keep relationships very well and that when he has a girlfriend she ends up talking to his secretary more than she talks to him because he is too busy to take calls from her.
Vivien is first introduced when she is in bed and the first shot is of her underwear, we don’t see her face until the next shot of her. The biggest signifier within the first few shots is of the pictures on her wall of her and her boyfriends but her boyfriends faces have been cut or scratched out.
I think that in conclusion Garry Marshall was very successful in how he was able to hook the audience. He used good techniques like the cross cutting shots and also how he introduced the two main characters away from each other leading their own lives. He made a very good contrast between Edward and Vivien by having Edward as the rich businessman and Vivien as the prostitute living in the Hollywood Boulevard. However he also made comparisons between the two characters for example neither of them are very good in relationships.
