Film Reference Research: Captain America the First Avenger

Captain America: The First Avenger begins not with Captain America, but the team of scientists who find him frozen in the ice. Since this movie is a comic book adaptation, many people would know of this plot point already, however, it still works for viewers who have never read the comics. The scene is suspenseful and mysterious, using ambient sound as well as tense, eerie incidental music. The tension slowly builds from the beginning dialogue that provides exposition for the viewer, hinting that whatever this team has found in the ice is more strange and possibly dangerous than the newly arrived agents believe. When they reach the strange object, the camera view widens from a wide shot to a long shot, then (likely on a crane) the view opens up even further to show the scale and enormity of the object. Incidental music fades in just before a dramatic impact like this, reaching a climax when the impact is revealed and fading away back into ambient sound. The ambient sound creates an uncomfortable silence, building the unease as the viewer waits for a new discovery to be made. When one of he scientists is intrigued by something, the music slowly fades in and there is an eye line match to Captain America's shield frozen in ice. When the shield is revealed, the main theme music plays and the Lieutenant calls for the Colonel, saying: "This one's waited long enough." No opening credits are shown in this scene. This film had a budget of 140 million dollars. Its world wide total gross was 370,569,774 dollars, with a profit of 230,569,774 dollars. This film won the Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Compositing in a Feature Motion picture and the BMI Film & TV Award for Film Music. It was nominated for many other awards, some examples being the Hugo Awards for Best Dramatic Presentation- Long Form and International Film Music Critics Awards for Best Original Score for Action/Adventure/Thriller Film and Film Music Composition of the year. Most of the movie's nominations had to do with its brilliant score or super hero adaptation.