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.