'North By Northwest' Opening Sequence

North by Northwest - 1959 - Alfred Hitchcock

• Green colour background, connotations signify jealousy/guilt/envy or nature/life 
• Growing diagonal parallel off centre, uneven, look like slices/cuts, linear representation, uneasy 
• Cross-hatching, becoming a grid, coming from different directions, criss crosses cover the screen, slightly converging into a corner, trapped feeling 
• Orchestral music builds up into a crescendo, dramatic, expectant, quick and constantly changing, like the movements on the screen, scurrying 
• Credits follow lines up and down into the centre of the frame 
• Order of credits: production company, main actors, title of the film (in a decorated font with arrows like hands on a compass to match the title itself), co-star actors, lesser stars, writer, musical composer, director of photography and film stock, production design, art directors set decorators, special effects, title designer, film editor, colour consultant, recording supervisor, hair stylist, make-up artist, small print confirming that all characters and events in the film are fictional, associate producer, director (large writing) 
• Blocks of white go across the screen before each credit, unsettling, sending the focus of your eyes all over the screen 
• After title is shown, green cross-hatched background fades out and matches windows on a sky scraper, distorted reflections and possible height of building give a feeling of discomfort, rotoscoping, credits still stay in line with the line of the windows 
• Don't know where you are, enigma 
• Skyscraper comes into focus, reflections are seen easier, show yellow taxis on the roads below, shows us that it is in New York City 
• After last credit the words drop down off screen and background dissolves into a crowded room, current clothing (at the time of filming), cut to lots of people walking out of large hotel-like doors, possibly the same skyscraper 
• At this point, the music is continuing to be loud and dramatic, reminiscent of car horns like the taxis in the busy roads of NYC 
• High angle shot of people walking into a subway, lots of businessmen, Rushmore, very crowded adds to the feeling of entrapment, shot shows people walking in a way similar to whirl pooling 
• Continued shots of people pouring in and out of buildings, insect-like swarms 
• Two women argue over a taxi, dehumanising them, gives an animalistic sense of the city folk