In the opening shot of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off the audience are shown a long shot of a fairly large suburban house in the USA. In front of the house are three cars, one of which looks quite sporty. From this we can assume that the owners of this house are quite rich or well-off in terms of money as they can afford such luxuries. This shot is also an action code as it gives the audience an impression of where one of the film’s settings is. It may also be seen as an equilibrium as at the moment everything seems calm and nothing is out of the ordinary.

In the following shot we are then introduced to the character of Ferris. In this shot, Ferris is represented as weak and quite vulnerable – seen through the extreme close-up shot of his to emphasise his stunned expression. As a result the audience immediately symphyses with his character due to his vulnerable state at the beginning of the film. The diegetic sound used in these seconds also reinforce the vulnerable state that Ferris appears to be in, as his parents sound genuinely worried about his apparent vulnerability.

In this shot we see that the representation of middle-aged parents is one of gullibility and elements of naivety. As a result of this, the social group in response may suffer from a decrease in respect and conformity from the younger generations such as teenagers like Ferris.The parents’ clothing seems to further indicate that they have a high standard of living, however the decorations and mise-en-scene in Ferris’ room suggest that he is an ordinary teenager. The posters and colour scheme of his bedroom, shown from a wide-angle shot, indicate a normal schoolboy.

The representation of the next character is very different to the one we are given of Ferris despite them being of a similar age. In this shot, the female character who we assume is Ferris’ sister is represented as very stubborn and disapproving. We know this because of her tone of voice as well as her head actions and various facial expressions. This representation is exploited by creative use of a range of close and medium shots. An example of binary opposites is clearly used effectively here as well (brother vs sister) which is a common use in films within a family household.

In this shot we are given an extremely contrasting representation of Ferris to the first one we saw. Rather than unwell and vulnerable, he now represents quite a lot of teenagers of his age group – mischievous and disobeying. As an audience we now know much more about him as a character than we previously did. From his lying persona, we have a basic understanding of what to expect from his character throughout the narrative. Teenage audiences may relate to having tried/thought about doing this before a school day, and are intrigued to find out what happens next as a result of Ferris’ manipulative ways.