Syd Field | Q&A Notes: "Action Openings"

Q&A Notes from the Webinar Archives of Syd Field The Art of Visual Storytelling.
Q: From Brazil, we get a question from Rodrigo: “Could you make some comment of what kind of opening was used in ‘The Matrix,’ the first movie?”
A: Well, first of all, that’s one of my favorite films and it is an action opening. I call it the inciting incident of that film. We learn who the characters are by the feats they can do, by willing their particular actions.
So when the film opens up, the female character races from rooftop to rooftop to rooftop. We see her extraordinary skills. And those skills are part of the inciting incident that lead us to the group of characters that Neo will soon join and that becomes an inciting incident of an action sequence for the film “The Matrix.”