Film Openings

In today’s lesson Tony was absent and so another media teacher took over instead.

At the start of the lesson, we watched a documentary called 'Watching' which implied different film critics and directors informing how an opening of a film should start. Whilst watching, we were filling out a worksheet related to the topic, as part of our ‘Thriller’ research. These gave me different ideas on how I could shoot my opening. During this documentary, it was revealing different techniques that would be more effective or suitable for thrillers to gain the audiences attention, for example, ‘Films need to seduce their audience..’ But how?. According to the documentary, Jean Jacques Beineix indicated that movies in general should start off steadily in stages, leaving the spectators in suspense and then gradually building up to the stage where the excitement is about to happen for them. However, on the other hand, Thomas Sutcliffe suggested that the film should be receive the audience’s attention immediately, precisely moving straight to the situation.

Another example was the classic opening, which is when the camera steadily exposes the atmosphere of the main character to allow the audience to have a clear idea on what is going on in the movie.

Other then that, we had to explain why a good beginning makes the audience feel that they do not know enough yet, at the same time as making sure that they do not know too little. In my opinion I believe that the reason for this is to keep the audience engaged and hooked on to the movie, giving them enough information to help them know what is going on in the story, creating a suspense towards them.

In my views of the film ‘Seven’. The title sequence is effective as it plays different equipment being rubbed together, therefore giving it a chilling effect towards the audience as well as embracing their attention alongside with the small handwriting and sudden flashes. Judging from the fact that its revealing what the character is doing, gave me the impression that the film may be psychotic or that there is a serial killer involved.

Lastly, the documentary referred on what is meant by ‘A favourite trick of Film Noir’ which is a process where it reveals the opening credits starting from the end of the story therefore becoming more understandable to the audience once the same clip is shown again but near the end of the film this time.

For my opening credits, I want it to have a similar effect, creating tension and suspense towards the audience. The main technique about the opening is that I want it to look as professional as in normal thriller movies to captivate the audiences attention.