openings of a film

In todays lesson, i looked over the openings of films. I started looking over at what method types are used to draw an audience onto a film. There are many methods that i have looked at like the types of shots including the establishing shot wich shoots at the whole scenery to give the audience an idea of where the film is set. The tones are also used at the beginning of a film which gradually starts to build up to get the audiences attention. Introducing characters helps draw audience's focus on the film, as they start wanting to know what the film will be about.

I then, was shown a documentary 'Watching' which is about film openings. Thomas Sutcliffe says that if the film don't catch attention at first, there is no point of watching the film. The beginning of films don't make the audience know enough or too little it insteads, leaves the audience to think what will happen next by knocking them off the seats or even grinds you into it, as you tend to remember it fondly. It starts of with a loud sound which awakes the audiences and want to start watching the film. Stanley Kauffmann described the classic opening as with the establishing shot as evrything comes into place.

Using this, Kyle Cooper brings a stark, ugly reality to the proceedings. The film Seven, illustrated the seven deadly sins to overwhelmingly graphic effect. On the other hand, Orson Welles wanted to achieve his opening of the film 'A touch of evil' with no credits and in black and white because that's where the colors of the characters, the location and ultimately the meaning of the movie are possible. Welles tended to use wide shots for all of his films, especially with the opening shot. He used cinematography and lighting in the film noir genre.

Film noir is the opening where it shows the ending of the film at the beginning this makes the audience wonder more about the film and ask questions to themselves of how it happened.

The film shinning was shown on the documentary which creates suspense as the use of child was manipulated, which makes it more effective as it was done really well.

In the second part of the lesson, i looked at other thriller opennings which gave me an idea for my own thriller of how to make it look real and also catch the audience's attention. With the examples of thrillers made by preivous students, i looked at the way the setting and location was used. I also looked at the camerawork, editing, lighting and the diegetic & non-diegetic sound. This showed that i had to make sure when i start to make my own thriller i take all these into action.