Research - Film Openings

I want to find out what a film opening should consist of and what is expected. For this I have examined over 30 film openings. I also chose to look at different genres in order to see if there are similarities or differences in film openings. I have studied films from the following genres:

• Action

• Adventure

• Comedy

• Crime

• Documentary

• Drama

• Family

• Fantasy

• Horror/Thriller

• Musical

• Mystery

• Romance

• Science fiction

• Sport

• War

• Western

I noticed that most films start off with a bold title sequence. I looked at the type of graphics chosen by producers and directors, in order to present the type of movie that will be watched. The graphics of a movie title will more than often represent the genre and type of movie. This can be employed by the use of font, colour and design. For example, the title of a sci-fi movie will usually look metallic, contemporary and bold.

Another aspect of movie production and relating a narrative, directors and script writers choose to show a particular main event of a movie in the opening scene. Creating a narrative enigma, something that requires an explanation, of which at the end it is revealed.


I watched many film openings from different genres here are the ones I liked:

Research

I will be doing my research on

• Film Openings
  
• Horror Film Openings
  
• Mise en Scene
  
• Target Audience
  
• Sound
  
• Horror Genre
  
• Horror Conventions

this reserch will help me with my genre selection as well as my final task.

Preliminary Task - Review

Overall I think the preliminary task came together well, considering that it was our first attempt at film making.


However the film itself was not perfect and as actors we are not trained in controlling our nerves, therefore the acting was half-hearted. Due to this, it was hard for my camera woman to get the full dialogue and the actions. And because of our inexperience in acting, many lines were fluffed; we were plagued with bouts of giggling and nervousness. The acting was not awful, but in the next task I would prefer there to be plenty of practice to avoid these problems.


I am happy with the fact that our ‘match on action’, ‘180 degree rule’ and ‘shot reverse shot’ were filmed effectively, there are many improvements that are required in the next task. I did notice that our editing of the ‘match on action’ was a bit fast and jumped a few seconds, possibly because we may have cut the scene too short.


Generally I’m satisfied with the acting, editing and the camera work; the best bit for us was designing the credits.

Preliminary Task- Software

The software I will be using is on the Mac laptop which is called iMovie 11; I will be using this software throughout the different tasks



Preliminary Task – Equipment

The equipment that will be used in this task and in the next are:


· A Sony HD digital video camcorder

· Tripod

· Props

· Mac Laptop

Preliminary Task - Casting

Cast


Female#1 – Aabidah Ali


Female#2 – Safina Rashid


Director – Jemma


Writer – Jemma


Producer 1- Jemma


Producer 2- Aabidah Ali

Preliminary Task - Location

The location we all agreed on would be at school, and the filming location take place in the drama block where the year 8’s have their break.

The reason for choosing this location was because it already had a built in sitting area which is convenient for us because we needed an area where the characters could sit facing each other. The drama block matched what we needed, as we liked the fact it was big and the lighting was appropriate for the film. The only difficulty we had was to film the 180 degree rule due to how female#2 was sitting, hopefully in the next task we will have improved our choreography.

If I had to film this again I would choose a slightly smaller location, the scene required being 2 minutes, filming the approach of female#1 to female#2 took up too much of this designated time .