Safe Haven Opening Sequence Analysis

The establishing shot is a scenic view of a desolate house, very dull and dark colours. You then see a young girl Katie (Julianne Hough) sprinting away with a bag tied up in her hands. She is wearing a skin tight black dress with no shoes and running through the woods; from this we can assume that she is trying to escape something, but what we don’t know. Her facial expressions suggest that she is frightened of something. The fact she is running through woods with no shoes on and hardly any clothes with a carrier bag containing what looks like old or dirty clothes could suggest that she is not of high status or she would be wearing shoes and not alone of an evening running through woodlands. It is evident that she is a girl as she has long brown hair and looks like she is in her late twenties.

The first sound we hear is non-diegetic music that leaves you feeling suspicious, it suggest the genre could be action. We then hear the crash from her running through the wooden garden gates along with her heavy breathing. There is then a dogs bark in the distance whilst she is running through the town. She starts to cry as she is banging on what seems to be a close neighbour’s door. The next thing we see is an over the shoulder shot of what we gather is still Hough’s character. However, this time it appears that she had cut her hair and dyed it blonde and is wearing a grey hoodie with a brown coat. We can either say this is due to non-continuity editing or, from what we have seen, we can analyse that she is hiding her original identity to get away from something she has done. The suspicious music continues to play as she gets on a coach. We can hear voices but they are asynchronous as we can’t actually see the source it is coming from. Shortly after we see her running through the middle to get on her coach we see a man appear at a window holding up a picture of Hough’ character but of her with long brown hair, the man had seen her just not with that identity.

As she sits on the coach she pulls out what appears to be a bag of clothes from underneath her hoodie. The man searching for her is stopping all the coaches to inspect them; he is dressed in a smart suit with a long tailed coat. From this we can gather that he has more of an important job and he is of higher status than her. The fact he had the authority to stop the bus with his DCI badge, also supports that. Throughout all of this happening, the soundtrack is still playing.

It then changes into playing a calming song with a view of a sunny mountain side road. These non-diegetic asynchronous sounds suggest a genre of romance. The first lyrics of the song are; “if we could go anywhere, anywhere what would you see” this also gives a hint that she is escaping something. Her facial expressions have changed massively and she looks a lot calmer and happier with her new identity.