Our Final Film

My own institutional logo for our production company

Research on institutional logos

DreamWorks

The connotations of the cloud and sky in the DreamWorks Logo shows aspiration and achievement, and this could suggest that this company are the best at what they do and sky isn't the limit.

Paramount

The logo for Paramount Pictures consists of 22 stars flying through the air and creating an archway around a mountain. These stars could represent aspirations and wishes while the mountain could reach for the sky and it isn't the limit.

These 2 mainstream companies both have their original logos that could have many different meanings to them, they use these to stand out and make it monumental to their company.

Insomnia Entertainment

This companies logo is very basic and sticks with a certain trend of using the colour blue in their logo, it has a window in it connoting that their can be unlimited possibilities with the kind of films they create and original in that sort.

Flock

This independent company logo has a picture of birds flying through a window, this could also link to the connotations in paramount that the sky isn't the limit and their company reaches above and beyond the best of the films. The logo is very plain which is expected for an independent company and doesn't animate, as they probably have a lower budget as a mainstream would have.

This will help us when creating our logo as we can compare both logos from different companies and see what we prefer, and see what would also link with our target audience and film genre.

Our Production Company

We decided to be a mainstream company, this is because we can create a more typical action packed film that has relation to the films we have researched, e.g. X-men, Deadpool, James Bond etc. These films are distributed and produced by mainstream companies that have a lot of money and those films have influenced us to create an action film. We can use their ideas to create our own film that has action genre relation their films. This would mean we would have to chose being a mainstream company, because without this the film would not be as action packed or as good as the other production companies.

This will help us when creating our film because we can use their production company films through researching and watching ones they have created and use their ideas, camera angles editing ways to implement into our own.

Films that have influenced me

A film that has influenced our film, is Deadpool.
This is because we like how the film has been pieced together that includes both a mix of action and comedy. It's the type of film you wouldn't expect to have implemented such derogatory terms and the weirdest moments. But this has influenced me because of how funny it is and how well it works in combination with an action.
Another film that has influenced me is the Green Hornet, this is because it is also an action comedy, to appeal to an audience you have to a lot going on. This film has that, it has a lot of fighting scenes, a lot of key bonding between the two main characters through comedic scenes, and a serious tone towards the end when finishing it off. This has influenced me because I think this film has been structured and pieced together so beautifully that if we created our film opening with this same pattern, it could turn out very successfully.
The final film that influenced me is Johnny English, this is because it also includes the two main genres we are using in our film opening. Both action and comedy again. The film overall has a very serious point that is put across but in the same time can be very funny the way the actor expresses his words and actions. This appeals top an audience because they are following a mystery during the story line but also picking up laughs on the way.

This can help us when creating our film opening because of the film we are so interested in, it can influence us to create something similar, and if those films work will, implementing a similar concept should turn out very professional looking with a good hint of comedy.

Extra research on my genre and audience

A total of 321 movies were given the classification, including The Hunger Games and Gravity, up from 234 in 2012.The rating means children aged 12 and over can go and see a film unaccompanied, but those under the age of 12 must view the film with an adult.For the first time, there were more 12A releases than 15-rated films.

Our audience is targeted at the ages of 12 and above. This is so our genre is completely directed to all ages and gets the maximum amount of people watching it as possible.

From our research we have found that the most common and liked genre to this date is action adventure. Luckily for us, we are doing action as our chosen genre.

We have also made the action film as a mainstream film, this would be so it could be distributed to a wider range of cinemas and be shown to more people as all audiences have personal preferences regarding what cinema they want to watch films in. This does not eliminate any of our audience because we are targeting it to all ages from 12 and above, so therefore if we are aiming it at the biggest amount of people possible, it could go successfully.

This will help us when creating our film because it will help us no our limits, therefore what we can and can't implement because of the age certification and because of the audience watching. We can also use other mainstream film's techniques and use it in ours because if their film was successful with the same age rating and both mainstream, we can use ideas from that and do similar filming in our opening.

The research we did, was questionnaires and surveys to find out exactly what would be perfect for our film. We found some secondary research online, to discover what the most popular genres were to the general public, this helped us then properly choose our chosen genre and based on the ages of the people who answered, helped us choose our audience.

A timeline of titles from a film in my chosen genre

UNIVERSAL

ORIGINAL FILM

0.35 Universal Pictures Presents

0.39 In association with MRC

0.43 In association with China Film CO., LTD.

0.47 An original film / one race films productions

2.44 Vin Diesel

2.48 Paul Walker

2.51 Dwayne Johnson

2.55 Michelle Rodriguez

2.59 Tyrese Gibson

3.03 Chris Ludacris Bridges

3.06 Jordana Brewster

3.08 Djimon Hounsou

3.12 Tony Jaa

3.17 Ronda Rousey

3.20 Nathalie Emmanuel

3.23 With Kurt Russell

3.27 And Jason Statham

3.34 Sung Kang
        Gal Gadot

3.37 Lucas Black
        Elsa Pataky

3.42 Noel Gugliemi
        John Brotherton

3.46 Casting By Anne McCarthy
                           Kelly Roy

3.49 Music By Brian Tyler

3.53 Costume Designer Sanja Milkovic Hays

3.58 Visual Effect Supervisors Mike Wassel
                                                  Kelvin McIlwain

4.07 Editors Christian Wagner
                     Dylan Highsmith
                     Kirk Morri
                     Leigh Folson Boyd

4.12 Production Designer Bill Brzeski

4.16 Directors of Photography Stephen F. Windon ACS
                                                  Marc Spicer ACS

4.20 Executive Producers Amanda Lewis
                                          Samantha Vincent
                                          Chris Morgan

4.24 Produced By Neal H. Moritz p.g.a
                              Vin Diesel
                              Michael Fortrell

4.28 Based on Characters Created By Gary Scott Thompson

4.32 Written By Chris Morgan

4.36 Directed By James Wan

4.39 Fast & Furious 7

This will help us when creating our film, as it gives us a specific guide of what is needed to be implemented and how long we can make it. In conclusion to this, many film credit openings are different, but in their own way that make them unique. For example some films have 4 lines of credits and show the actors name a bit later in the first 10 minutes. On the other hand some films have a whole script, as seen above with Mission Impossible.

In our film, we can now use these skills and copy other films of what needs to be done regarding the text that will be inserted. E.G. the actors, directors, editors, etc.

An analysis of a film in my chosen genre

Genre
Genre is immediately shown in the opening sequence, you hear loud noises and a gun shots portraying the crime and action that has taken place. The genre of the film has a lot of mixed ones, like action, romance and comedy being action the main one. A young boy is then shown stabbing an adult with claws coming out of his body, this is significant because it shows a small fight scene between the two giving off that genre action effect. They then go onto the two kids have grown up through all the world wars and civil wars, This immediately displays the genre because a typical view of war is action and a lot of things are happening.

Narrative
The narrative in the film is very limited, as more action is being shown in the beginning, but the dialogue that is implemented is very harsh, in a manner that the younger boy is shown as vulnerable and spoken over by his older brother. The narrative really brings out the characters features from the start, the older brother is portrayed as quite brutal, as he claims to his brother that 'he is always sick' asking the audience that question that was that really needed? The dialogue from the younger brother shows he is intelligent and listens to his parents, until his parents are killed in front of him and displays of juxtaposition of a young boy turning into a man when they leave the house and run away to set up the rest of their lives.

Character
The characters in the opening sequence are showed on screen immediately, and their characteristics fluctuate throughout the start of the film. This is because the chain of events that occur, has changed them as humans inside to what they were in comparison to what they are now. For example, the young buy is shown as vulnerable, then when he kills his father, he is then shown as independent as vicious as he is taken the action to murder. The older boy is shown as the alpha male of the family, as he the structure of his body is portrayed as almighty and intelligent.

Atmosphere
The atmosphere in the beginning changes vastly from very sweet and homey to a brutal nature of life. It starts out in the beginning of the young boy in bed feeling ill with his 'father' to him killing his real father and them setting off in the woods. The first 2 minutes shows them growing up very fast so they can fit the rest of the film in and just give a brief backstory of how they got to the present day. But it shows them being in the world war fighting with guns and killing people. The atmosphere is completely opposite from one half to the other of the opening sequence. This is good as it gives the audience a mix of action and emotion from loving to brutal life.

Themes
The most common theme in the film opening is murder and fighting, this is so it grabs the audience attention immediately from the film instead of them having a dull opening scene and not really interacting with the rest of the film. These themes are deliberately shown to fit the genre and target audience of action, which is perfectly portrayed in the start of the film so that it puts across that message of it being quite a brutal film.

Setting
The opening sequence is set in Canada and America at many different points in time because of the two characters ability to be able to heal preventing them from ageing. The start is set around 1800 when they are in the mansion but as they go on in time it goes from 1800 to 1900 and mid 20th century. This because they included the American civil war, and world war 1. They then come to that films present which is set in 1959.

Sound
The sound is very deep in the film opening to set the scene and characters, most of which is tense music to set the audience off and attract their attention. Throughout the end of the clip, music is loud and clear when they are fighting in the wars to present the brutal life that occurs when war happens. The sound really represents the genre of action as they both go hand in hand when it comes to matching the two together.

Titles
The titles used are really just the main characters actors names including the directors, editors and producers etc. The font used in it is quite basic, as they didn't want to put bold text out because the audience really needed to be focusing on the story line instead to understand the plot rather than having big words in their face.

We can use this when creating our film opening as their titles and the way they present their action genre can be implemented in ours to make ours flow as good as X-men's.

Our chosen genre and research

For this task I will be talking about our chosen genre and why we have decided this. We have chosen to do action because most of our ideas fit in with this genre and it is one of the most popular genres that we can create an intriguing realistic situation from. We want to accept the challenge of making a good action film opening without having explosions, car chases, etc so instead we are also going to add an aspect of comedy. We are hoping this will widen our audience because comedy is a more popular genre than action. A film that influenced our ideas for this is Deadpool as its an action film but its also a comedy and we think these genres work well together and with our ideas.


This will help us when creating our film opening as we know our genre, we know what we want, and we can base it off of Deadpool as mentioned above. We can use ideas from other action films and implement it into ours.

Our Opening Remake

We chose to do Se7en, as this remake would be a challenge due to the fast paced editing. We thought that if we could do this, then we could use these skills for our official film opening. This will help us when creating our film opening because, the improvements and problems we have learnt from this, we can use and do better in our main film opening.

Differences between mainstream and independent films

Mainstream films are widely released in cinemas and can be the Hollywood blockbuster movies. Typical mainstream films are released in the cinema for a short time and then released for home use and sod in popular stores.

The difference between them both is mainly the distribution, as mainstream are usually released internationally in different cinemas but independent are sometimes just directly to DVD or just one cinema.

The film openings are basically the same because mainstream films will have a big budget therefore better equipment and more expensive locations. For example, in spectre, they filmed their opening Mexico City during the day of the dead period. This would have cost a lot of money considering they would have had to hire thousands of actors to play a part in the scene. They also used a helicopter fight scene, which also would have been expensive. For one actually hiring a helicopter and two flying it around Mexico City in a maniac manner.

On the other hand, an independent film like American Honey had a very small budget and didn't include much in their opening scene. This is because independent films are feature films that are produced outside of the major film studio system, in addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment agencies.
Independent films have specific genres because they have such a small budget, therefore they won't be able to afford two major genres, this would also run into the a small plain story, they wouldn't make such a massive storyline including everyone and everything, therefore making it simple. 
Actors are usually not famous, due to the fact they have a small budget, addition to this, this would go hand in hand with the technology used, again they have a small budget. 

Film Openings and Audiences

Different Film openings attract audiences in different ways, for example it could be the mise, sound, editing, or camera work that makes us want to keep watching. Depending on the genre, it could attract a large or small audience. From our research action adventure was the most common genre to watch by an audience. Usually in a film opening, a lot of music is used and small amounts of dialogue, this makes the tension build up and attract the audience a lo quicker because if the opening is just filled with dialogue and they have no idea what is going on, it can bore the audience.  The most common shot used in an opening scene, is an establishing shot to set the scene and make it clear to the audience where it is starting/shooting, this also helps the audience of knowing what the genre is. The film opening also gives an insight to the film and what it could be about.  The film opening can also establish the main character through the film opening with the sequence of long shot, mid shot and close up which can attract the audience to find out who the characters are. The use of mise and sound is so important, the props they use and location can make an audience appeal to what is showed on screen. For example in horror films they use sound to build tension. By establishing the main character in the opening scene, it will help attract an audience as this also gives the audience what the characters are like and their features. The hypodermic needle theory is used in films to inject information to the audience in a subtle way, to influence peoples actions in real life. This will help us when creating our film opening because we can do right what other films openings didn't do. With the help from our research we can create better shots that engage the audience, cool location shots and the right implementation of props relevant to the film.

Making a film opening with Jelly Babies

Here we have a storyboard of a rough cut film opening using jelly babies. This was to see how we could use imagination when creating a small idea, and see where it could take us. This has the genre we wanted to choose, but the storyline is different to what our real film opening is going to be.

This will help us when creating our film, as we have made a short storyline of what we want our film to look like on a rough guide. We can then go into our film making using all of our plans like the jelly baby activity and see which plan is the best and work from there, instead of filming with no research and planning.

Generic Conventions in Film Openings

Comedy

• Occurs in bright places
• Camera work is naturalistic and characters are filmed in a way that shows that no one is better
• Non-Diegetic sound can be used to place emphasis on certain scenes
• Lighting creates a realistic environment
• Bright and happy colours are used to show that the scene is happy and usually shot in daylight
• Objects/props that may hurt a character is commonly used
• Different character types are usually used in contrast with a group of normal people (usually idiotic over dramatic characters)

3 types of comedy:

Slapstick

Dark Humour

Wiz/Wordplay

Here is a video of Charlie Chaplin, the non-diegetic sound emphasises a theme of cheekiness in order to make the audience laugh.

He is the only character acting over dramatically and emphasising his actions over the rest of the people shown in the scene.

Action

• Fights
• Weapons - Knives and guns
• Futuristic cars, motorbikes
• Explosions and crashes
• Cat and mouse chase
• Killings: death of loved ones
• Outbreaks in windows, doors, houses
• Sinister up beat music
• Hi Tech/big machinery
• Always a motive
• Outbursts in settings

Here is a video of Red 2, this involves a car chasing scene trying to capture something. This reinforces the fact that there is always a motive and a reason behind what is going on in the scene. The car used is quite modern and very expensive, this scene ends up in a fight which is the typical view of an action movie.

Horror

• Usually set in isolated areas
• Use of props include weapons/antiques/bibles/crucifix
• Big painting
• Limited amount of colours
• Dark Lighting
• Bad weather
• Stereotypical costumes
• Exaggerated diegetic sound
• Fast and Loud non diegetic sound

Here is a trailer of the film Annabelle. In this film a lot of exaggerated sound is used to deliver that creepy effect towards the audience, it also includes a lot of props including the doll named Annabelle. This is to give meaning to objects that they have some sort of background information to them making it seem everything is not what it seems. Throughout the trailer, the scenes are very dark and spooky through the use of lighting. This is key in a horror movie to put across the scariness that the film has to deliver.

Thriller

• Lowkey Lighting
• Quick Cuts
• Shadows
• Black and white shots
• Angle changes
• Protagonist and Antagonist
• Darkness/Shadows
• Storyline designed so the audience can feel like it will happen to them.

An example for a Thriller movie, would be 'Taken'. This film is an excellent example for a thriller film as the film isn't so different to real life. The events that take place in the film have also happened in real life, and the audience can relate to it and possibly think that it could happen to them. (Depending on the structure of the film). Darkness is included in this to emphasise the sinister events that have taken place. Fast paced editing is used to build up the tension and reach a climax, for example in taken when the girl is about to be stolen by the antagonist, a switch of scenes between the Dad, girl and bad guys is frequently used to emphasise the fast pace of editing.

Romance

• 'Boy meets girl scenario'
• Traditional happily ever after
• Storyline gets linked to audiences emotions
• Lots of props including flowers, chocolates, beds etc.
• Hero and Villain
• Involving emotions like love, pain, failure, excitement

An example for a Romantic movie, could be Bridget Jones's Baby. This film includes two guys and a girl, both fighting to be the love of her life as well hoping to be the father of her child but don't know which person it is. At the start of the film, the main character typically meets a guy and makes love to him, she then comes across an ex boyfriend and makes love to him too. Once they all find out the truth they all fall out and towards the end it's a happily ever after where one of the guys gets married to her including the props of flowers, wedding bells, love and includes a past story of how they got to this event. This backs up the bullet points showing that romantic films all have very similar structures to them.

Drama

• Intense social interaction
• Conflicts
• Realistic struggles
• Can include a romance
• Form of happy ending 
• Audience can relate to the characters

An example for a dramatic film, would be 'A Serious Man'. This broke the convention of a typical ending where the audience knew what was going to happen to Larry. The audience could not predict that the end would have that typical happy ending or net. There was indeed a small romance between 2 characters and also included a lot of conflict.

Adventure

• Time periods in the past 
• The hero and villain
• Exotic locations
• Humorous dialogue
• The donor
• The helper
• The dispatcher

An example of adventure, would be the 'Matrix'. This is because it follows the 7 types of characters created by Vladimir Propp, for example, Neo would be seen as the hero because he kills the villains (the agents) and saves trinity from her death in the virtual world who would be seen as the princess. The location of the Matrix is set in the virtual world which is very different to any other film and be portrayed as exotic. 

This will help us when creating our film opening because we can get an overview of the different genres in films and implement them into our film. From this we can create similar generic conventions into our film. For example we have chosen our main genre to be action, therefore we need to include cool gadgets, cars, maybe some fight scenes. This is so we don't go on a tangent when creating our genre and actually create something completely different to what it should be.

The Impact of Certification

Certification can have a massive impact on films, for example a film could have chosen a certain age rating, and targeted their film at that audience and dedicated all of the action/dialogue towards it. But the BBFC could have disagreed with their decision of making it that certificate and making a higher one maybe from 12 to 15. This eliminates the audience they hoped and planned for and may not appeal to the new official audience. This could be really bad for companies as they could lose a lot of money due to the amount of decreased tickets purchased in a cinema or DVD's being bought because they aren't the right age to buy/rent it.

Here is an example of a Certificate change for The Woman in Black.

The BBFC considered the film to be on the border between the 12A and 15 categories, because of the number of scenes of supernatural horror. Therefore, several factors needed to be considered by the BBFC before a decision on the final category for the film could be made. 

From this, it has limited The Woman In Black's audience from a younger to an older age of people losing their target audience and losing money. 

The impact on certification on films can be an issue, as the film can estimate their audience way over than they need to be, they could make it an 18 but really it could be suitable for a 15, therefore losing that age gap and losing money.

This will help us when creating our film because we can see from other films, what works and what doesn't work, we can analyse throughout our film what is needed for it to be the right age certifation, thereby gaining the right audience we need.

The comedy film Mrs.Doubtfire was given a 12 classification by the BBFC. Some councils disagreed with their decision and gave the film a PG.

Certification in Films

U - Suitable for audiences aged four years and over containing no violence, crime or malicious words.

PG - General viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children A PG film should not unsettle a child aged around eight or older. Unaccompanied children of any age may watch, but parents are advised to consider whether the content may upset younger, or more sensitive, children.

12A/12 - Contains material that is not generally suitable for children aged under 12. No one younger than 12 may see a 12A film in a cinema unless accompanied by an adult. Adults planning to take a child under 12 to view a 12A film should consider whether the film is suitable for that child. Sexual activity can be briefly portrayed or mentioned, the use of drugs, and small sections of nudity. There could be moderate language but not language that would be suited in a 15/18 certified film.

15 - No one younger than 15 may see a 15 film in a cinema. No one younger than 15 may rent or buy a 15 rated video work. This could contain - Discrimination, drugs, sex, violence, crime, threat, nudity and language. 

18 - No one younger than 18 may see an 18 film in a cinema. No one younger than 18 may rent or buy an 18 rated video work. Adults should be free to choose their own entertainment. Could contain everything mentioned in 15, but sex education for the use of educating 18 year old adults about sex.


This will help us when creating our film as we now know what certificates are suited fit for our target audience. We can now choose the right age rating that will be appropriate for our audience. It can also show us what we are allowed to implement in the film and what isn't allowed in the film. For example if we choose a 12, we have the option of putting moderate language and bad behaviour in the film, but need to consider if it is relevant to the film plot and would our chosen target audience feel the need of the implementation.
We have certification so it limits the younger audience from seeing clips that do not suit their age group, as the media have a big influence on children and could use big words or copy actions from films they shouldn't be seeing.

All films shown in the UK need an age rating by law.This is monitored by the BBFC

Film Opening Timelines

 X-Men Origins
Skyfall
Deadpool

This will help us when creating our film, as it gives us a specific guide of what is needed to be implemented and how long we can make it. In conclusion to this, many film credit openings are different, but in their own way that make them unique. For example some films have 4 lines of credits and show the actors name a bit later in the first 10 minutes. On the other hand some films have a whole script, as seen above with Mission Impossible.

In our film, we can now use these skills and copy other films of what needs to be done regarding the text that will be inserted. E.G. the actors, directors, editors, etc.

Student Film Opening Detailed Analysis

Genre
The genre in this film opening is clearly action, as throughout the clip guns and violence is used and portrays two characters fighting for a certain item. This opening sequence is good as it immediately attracts the audience attention by using a text on a phone as a 'lure' into the two characters arguing and fighting. It is clearly shown throughout the opening clip the genre is action because of the events that take place.

Editing
In my opinion, the editing in this is spectacular, especially in the first transition from when he is on top of the building in London to then switching to when he gets on the ground floor outside.

They used a lot of cross cuts in the piece and gave the main character more prevalence. This is obviously to tell which characters had more relevance to others.

Sound
They used a lot of dialogue in this, but from the first minute or so, they just used tense music to immediately grab the audiences attention and build up the tension in the clip, they then start talking/arguing about a disagreement. This gives the audience a sense of clarity between the characters and finding out which ones are the good ones and bad ones.

Camera Angles
In my opinion they could have used a wider range of different camera angle seeing as most of their shots were just medium shots of the people. Their first shot was an establishing shot which look astonishing, but their skills around the camera were average, as the same shot was used regularly throughout the piece.

Mise
Their choice of mise was very wisely chosen, as the clothing that was used for each character corresponded to their role perfectly. The bad guys wore full blown suits to show their dominance and power of the guy on his own in casually worn clothes. The lighting was quite dull and dark throughout the piece to give that tense effect off to the audience. The location in the car park could have changed seeing as they wanted to build up tension, where they could have filmed it in a much scarier place than just under a car park.


Titles
The titles in this clip are very basic, but used in italic font. This could be a representation of the plot going sideways. They used a white colour onto the titles to make it clearer to see to the audience. In my opinion I really like the basic look of it as it doesn't stand out, but it's looks slick enough when you want to look at it.

Character
The characters both have the typical view of good and bad, they all possess the same body language and tension as if they are being watched. They are basically all wearing the same clothes meaning they all have something in common, the bad guy plays a very good part in his stubborn emotion and the good guy has an arrogant up front kind of personality.

This will help us when creating our film as we can learn from the mistakes that this film had, and use that to make sure we don't do what they did in ours. We can use their strengths like good transitions to make our film flow as perfectly as theirs did.

What Makes a Good Student Film

• ·         Engaging from the start

This is a key feature to have, because if it doesn’t capture the audience immediately, they will not want to carry on watching, this will make your audience stay and most likely finish until the end. In the real world, making another film on from that, will get twice as many views as the old audience will likely see it again and recommend it to other people.

• ·         Storyline to be clear

Without the storyline being clear, the audience will not have a clue of what is going on and would switch off during the film, probably giving it bad reviews. Having it understandable to the audience makes them satisfied as they know everything that is happening up to that point and not hard to follow making them stay for the film.

• Creating a mystery

A good feature to have in a film, is making the audience think, having sly clues and mystery for the audience to figure out, is always a good way to keep your audience. If they are thinking all the way through it, this connotes they are captured and will want to watch until the end.

For example, Jack Reacher completely tops the mystery effect as throughout the whole film, the audience is trying to discover who committed the crime and why they framed the person for the 5 sniper shootings. The audience then find out right at the end of the film, this is also good as it makes them stay until the end, so all unanswered questions are then answered.


Here is an example of a student film. This is an excellent example as it creates a mystery for the audience with regards to the man that barged into her and also what is following her. This makes the audience question what is going on in the clip and wants to find out what happens next.

• ·         Good characterisation

Having good characterisation is important in a film, as the audience can relate to them and understand different point of views. For example, if they don’t have the right attitude and gestures as the character you want in the film, they won’t be fit for purpose and can be hard to follow the storyline. Showing character expresses their emotions and feelings, making it feel more real making the audience more engaged, otherwise they are not going to really believe what they are saying. They have to sound like they mean that it.

• ·         Create Conflict immediately

Conflict is the building block of every scene regardless of the genre. If there is absolutely no conflict in a scene, it won’t be interesting or appeal to the audience. Lack of conflict bores people and would drive your audience away.

·         First shot

The first shot has to be eye catching, for example, an establishing shot to start off the scene would be atmospheric as it’s setting the scene and making the audience attracted to it, whether it be a country side set or a dark place. It makes it relevant to the film and in relation to the film, it sets it up for the audience.

• ·         Fast Paced Editing

Fast paced editing at the start of a film is a good way to capture the audience’s attention from the start, this is because a lot of different events are happening at once, therefore they have to keep up and pay attention with regards to what is going on. In comparison to the clip being slow, it can be seen as dragged on and boring to the audience, therefore losing their attention to the film and wouldn’t commit to watching anymore.

• ·         Different shots and angles

Having different shots and angles in a film opening gives more variety to the audience and can give different viewpoints. For example, if two people are having a conversation, you wouldn’t want the camera to just stay stationery using the 180-degree rule shot. You wouldn’t see different sides to people’s faces and the different shots around them that make the set and atmosphere. Having a wide range of angles shows variety in your film and would make your audience stay longer because they wouldn’t be bored with the same shot, they get to see a lot more of what’s in the clip.

• Create visceral impact

Creating a story that will excite the audience, make the jump out of their seats or laugh out loud as it makes the literally hooked to the film and really concentrating because they are understanding the plot and reacting to it through their emotions. Audiences like something they can relate to, and implementing could keep a permanent audience.

• Construction of editing

When creating a film opening, the editor is to edit the footage they have received and cut together appropriate footage to enable the audience to clearly understand the narrative. Then must always include a beginning a middle and an end so that the audience are able to fully understand the film. 

• Build up tension

Building up tension in the film opening is very important, whether you do it with sound effects or music, It can cause a big impact on the way they view the film opening. For example the music that can be used is quite low but fast paced, building up to a climax until something happens. This effects the mood and tempo of the opening, and can easily attach the audience to the piece.


Here is an example of building up tension through a student film. For half of the film opening he is walking through a forest with tense music going on a mysterious walk. The climax eventually happens when he suddenly sees a clown and has a fight with him. This is good as it makes the audience see where he is going and what he is doing with a gun.

This will help us when creating our film opening as it gives us tips and tricks of what we should do, and what we shouldn't do. This will also help us with regards to not make the mistakes other film openings did. For example, the font needs to be relevant to the film and not completely in your face with bright colours. The film opening also needs to be appealing and not some typical teenage drama that no one is going to like. We need to find the right actors that have the relevant age to the film we want, and the correct clothes they will be wearing. The final thing that needs to be done is the right location, because if the location is completely different to your story line then it will be unclear to the audience.

Bibliography

http://www.filmmakingstuff.com/filmmaking-lesson-8-make-some-short-films/