Textual Analysis of 'Billy Elliot' (Stephen Daldry, 2000)

Storyline
An 11 year old boy who is pressured by his father into doing boxing. However, he finds himself immersed in ballet and soon it becomes his dream to be a ballet dancer. This dream is not met kindly by his family though.

In the opening sequence, the storyline is not clear as it doesn't give away much about the storyline of the film. However, it is just footage of a boy jumping on his bed, so the audience may realise he is the main character and the story of the film is about him.

Enigma Codes
A boy is seen jumping on his bed. This creates the question in the audience's head of 'who is he?' and 'why is he jumping on his bed?'








Characters
The only character shown at this point is a young boy.
Throughout the opening sequence, he is jumping on his bed, smiling and pulling funny faces.
This represents his character as someone who is young, carefree and happy.

Locations
Only the background of a wallpaper is shown throughout this sequence.
This makes you think that currently, the character is somewhere in his house, most likely his bedroom.

Lighting
Very bright lighting and clear.
You can see the close up features of the boy very well and the shadows on his face and background.

Cinematography

• Camera is focused on the character in the foreground and the background is blurred. This technique is used in order to help the audience focus their attention on the object/person the director wants their attention to be on.
• Lots of close ups and extreme close ups on objects and particularly on the character's face and part of his body.

Editing
In regard to editing, the whole sequence flows easily with very little use of cuts.
However, the whole piece is slowed down and is in slow motion in order for it to go in time to the music, but also to take in more of the character so the audience can gain information through the character's facial expression and the setting he is in.

Sound
There is no dialogue in this sequence.
At the beginning you hear background noises such as the character's breathing.
Throughout the opening sequence there is a song playing, 'Cosmic Dancer' by T Rex. The pace of the sequence is slowed down in order to go in time with the music.

It is also music which matches the decade in which the storyline is set in; 1980s

Titles
Font of the titles is very basic and is not in a bright colour, but is just a blank white. It is also positioned in the centre of the screen where it can be seen clearly by the audience.














The titles also fade in when the character is off screen, then it fades out again when the character is on screen.