The opening sequence of the teen neo-noir film, Brick (Johnson, 2005) uses a shocking initial establishing shot image of the protagonist perched awkwardly, at a distance, on a curb while looking onto the body of a girl laying face down in flowing water. This shot exhibits the rule of thirds perfectly and helps to show the degree of separation, now that she is dead, between these two characters. (The rule of thirds technique is further repeated throughout the film). This then cuts to, essentially, an extended flashback of the events leading to this tragedy. The initial scene then begins again, without music at the 24:30 mark.
Iconography is also used in the opening sequence, as the first image the audience sees is the protagonist’s shoes, the shoe iconography extends throughout the film as the first images we see of the dead girl is her wet hair and her scuffed shoes. This acts as a visual motif throughout, and the significance climaxes when the shoes (or lack thereof) helps Brendan survive a knife attack. We could use iconography to establish the significance of a particular item and create an enigma surrounding the character(s) using it.
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