Film Openings 08/01/09

The focus of todays media lesson was film openings, the different types of openings you can get and why they are all effective. We learnt that there are four types of openings these being:
The traditional opening (instant arousal)- This is an opening where from the very beginning the audience's attention is grabbed through fast paced action sequences giving the audience immediate satisfaction and making them want more. The thing you have to take careful consideration of with this type of opening is if you give the audience everything that they want in the first twenty minutes or so you have to come up with something bigger and better to carry the film on.

The traditional opening (slow)- This is similar to the first traditional opening but is a lot slower, meaning that the film builds up gradually until it peaks usually at the end or near the end of the film. This type of opening instead of giving everything the audience wants at the beginning it lures the audience in preparing them for the journey in which they are about to undertake.

Graphic title sequence- This is an opening in which a title sequence opens the film. It doesn't necessarily have to feature any characters and mainly uses abstract graphics to get the audience interested and in some cases indicate to the audience what themes will be touched upon in the film.

The flashback- This is when the movie starts with the end of the film and then goes back showing the audience how that particular ending came about or it can start from the middle and the rest of the film will be worked around it.

The film openings above are all different but all have the same purpose which is to engage the audience into watching the whole film.
After learning the different ways in which a film can start we watched some of last years thrillers which was not just entertaining but quite useful. We observed that in most thriller openings there are lots of quick cuts and jump cuts which I think sets the pace of the film. One of the main things that I learnt was that sound is so important when making a film opening because it has to compliment the action which is happening on screen. The soundtrack in a thriller is generally made up of instruments of the string variety and as the opening unfolds there tends to be a crescendo in the music (gradually gets louder), the pace is normally increased dramatically and also the pitch gets higher and higher until the climax. From watching the different openings it is also apparent that mis-en-scene plays a big role because it adds a certain tone to the film for example, in the majority of thrillers that we saw the opening was set in a large, open, desolate space like a wood or the total opposite being a small dark room where certain charcters are building bombs or holding hostages. Although, I do feel that it is probably more effective if it is set somewhere more everyday-ish because it makes the audience feel more like that what's happening could actually happen making the film more intense.

I found todays lesson extremely helpful because I was able to recognise the factors that are so important when making an opening.