Genre/Atmosphere

What is the tone?
The movie opens with a series of shots transitioned with fades, to show the lapse in time, accompanied with a voiceover. The words said by the old man set a grim tone, "We had so much potential, which led us to our downfall", something terrible has happened to the world. As 9 awakes after the title there has been a change in colour, the whole room dark except the lift filtering through the broken window, we feel curiosity on where are we, what is 9 really, bit by bit though it unravels through the opening. We get a POV shot of 9 leaning over the desk to find the dead scientest, doing nothing but helpt he grim mood. Then as 9 walks to the window the camera zooms out to give us a extreme long shot of the city, being only composed of shattered buildings and rubble, folloed by a POV shot of 9 scanning the streets to show the first sign of life, someone towing a wagon, seeing this, 9 rushes out to find him but we get a close up of a box with a tag saying "9", giving up the impression of there is something more in this room for 9, which does indeed foreshadow a future event.

Close up on the box for 9

As 9 walks out into the broken city we get slow long and close shots of parts of the city, both setting the
 scene and explaining past events. We get a close up of dead humans in a car, suggesting sudden death, a medium shot of the car coated with rusty paint showing a long time has passed since the apocalyptic event. Close ups on posters of logos and "revolt" which give us the impression of a war that had gone out of control.

Close up on revolt poster

Now we finally have our first interaction with characters and 9 instinctively attacks him, giving us fear as we already have the feeling that this world is not safe, but this is soon changed for us as 2 reaches out and says "I'm a friend." We start to ge the tone maybe things will be getting better for 9, meeting up with 2 who knows his way around the city, finding the voicebox for 9 from the doll and being wise "Some things in this world are better left where they lie, but know where to look and this world can be full of treasures" but again like before this safe mood is broken as we meet the catbeast for the first time.
2 valiantly fights to protect 9, who is pretty much a total stranger but ends up being picked up by the beaat and carried off, leaving us with a sombre tone we can only imagine 9 is feeling too, having his only "friend" in this world kidnapped.

Mood of the opening?
Close to creepy, remorseful, having already 2-4 deaths in the introduction of the film, horror coming in early on too as the cat beast creeps up and attacks 9 and 2, yet mystery plays a part as we have no idea where we are, if 9 is alone and is seen from afar from the telescope of another ragdoll we haven't met yet

How is it created?
The mood is set mostly using colour, audio and some specific camera shots
Colour - the colour palette used by the animators is very grey, using a lot of the darker tones to show this isn’t the most cheerful movie, dark clouds, burnt buildings, shattered rubble, it shows this is a world that’s been through a lot of hurt.

Rusty red, dark grey, depressing colours

Audio - For most of the intro 9 doesn’t speak, so a lot of the sounds are heavily emphasized, e.g. steps, windows, metal clanging, which just makes the silence in between those rare sounds more noticible, showing how the world lacks life, how 9 and us as the audience is alone. Also backing all this up a grim soundtrack plays in the background.
Camera Techniques - A lot of the shots are POV shots, we really immerses us into how 9 would be feeling as he sees everything e.g. the revolt posters increasing curiosity, the dead scientists increaing fear, also using alot of extreme long shots and long shots, just to set the scene but to show the only moving thing in this world is 9 at the start of the movie, everything is just still and dead.