22 Jump Street - Opening scene (analysis)

The movie begins looking back on 21 Jump Street which is good as it allows the audience to remember previous events and the story line in order for this one to make more sense. After this, the name of the film, 22 Jump Street, comes up in red and blue with flashes in the background. The blue and red flashes in the background connote police sirens to the audience which follows the story line as they are undercover police in both this and the last movie. 

They started by using an establishing shot, this showed us the setting of the scene as well as the two main characters. During this shot, they used panning movement, this is when they move the camera from left to to right or the other way. Not long after, we see them in possession of guns which gives us a general idea of what genre the film is as these weapons are typical conventions of an action film. Alternatively, at this specific point in the film they begin to play music and start messing around with them and dancing. The audience could see this as immaturity, however this could be another convention to a genre such as comedy. This would be foreseen as a comedy as they are supposedly 'cops', as they would be called in America which is the setting of the film, however they are portraying themselves differently as they seem to be quite jokey about it. At the start of the film, the setting was shown at some kind of college/school lecture, however not long after we see that this was just being watched by the two characters. At this stage, a point of view shot was being used to allow the audience to see from their perspective.

The setting is very typical for an action film being in a big city. We were shown the setting at the start of the scene when they used the establishing (long) shot. An establishing shot tends to be at the start of a film and/or scene to either establish the setting and/or the main characters. The director has also used a long shot when the two main characters, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are walking past the building next to the car. Long shots show the setting aswell as the action going on behind it.