The main purpose of a film opening is to catch the viewers attention and get them immersed in the film, just by the first few minutes of the film. A good film opening addresses the genre, the setting, and tells the viewers the overall vibe of the film. Through this, the viewers will have a gist of what to expect in the film and the opening scene usually is the determining factor whether or not they will continue to watch the film.
The sequence of a film opening:
- PRODUCTION LOGO
Commonly, before a film starts, a short clip with a film’s production logo will be played to let viewers know which production/company house the film is produced by. Well known production companies include: e.g. Warner Bros Pictures, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Studios and etc.
2. TITLE OF THE FILM
The title of the movie is normally also shown in the beginning of the film and in some occasions, it may also be shown at the end of the film. The function of a title is to address the film genre and is to sometimes give away hints about the content of the film, however, most of the times viewers cannot completely sense the genre with just the title name. Films should have memorable titles with unique designs, its generally large, easily readable, clear, and should be visually appealing or eye catching to attract viewers.
The images on the left are horror/thriller films, and just by short glance you can instantly tell the film genre by its title design. It uses dark colors; mainly black to represent darkness and fear, the blood red color contrasts well with the black colors which allows it to stand out and bold serious fonts.
On the contrary, the images of film titles on the left are movies made for kids and teenagers. It has a much more ‘happier’ vibe in contrast to the images on the left, with bright colorful colors backgrounds and playful fonts.
3. CHARACTER INTRODUCTION
A character introduction introduces the main characters of the film.
Here’s a video from the film ‘Frozen’ of two main characters first appearance in the film. By watching this extract, we get a glimpse of the two sisters personalities, demeanors, nature and their relationship’s intimacy.
4. TOPIC/ THEME
The main topic of the film is usually given away in the early portions of the movie, to allow the viewers to have a sense of what the film is going to be about, however, the important details and obstacles of the film are not disclosed.
5. NARRATION/TEXT
Narrations are commonly used in films to make them more interesting and create a clear introduction of the storyline. In some cases, the narration is conducted by the main character of the film, this allows the viewers to know and understand the character to a deeper extent because the audience will know what the character is thinking. Additional texts could also be used to dramatize the scenes and actions.
6. FLASHBACKS
In some opening sequences, a flashback is used to show the audience of incidents that happened before the present storyline and it can be important for viewers to know the characters origin. Keep in mind that flashbacks can be added in films at any part of the film to give more information of what really happened in certain incidents
Flashback scenes are usually edited to be blurry and disorientated to make it clear that what is shown is a flashback scene.
7. CREDITS
The opening credits or end credits very often connote what the film is going to be about, with the use of text, music and visual images, rather than dialogue or narration. It also reveals all of the cast and crew involved in making/producing the film
8. ESTABLISHING SHOT
The use of an establishing shot is to let the audience know where the storyline is taking place, to set the scene and it may also give a slight idea of when this is happening. As a reference, in the Disney film Mulan, the first scene/opening scene immediately shows the great wall of china, by the use of this establishing shot viewers will know the storyline is happening in China
There is so much more conventions used in film openings. I have only discussed a small portion of them but I hope you found this blog post beneficial and helpful. Have a good day! 🙂
Ashley AS Media Studies 2022 