Conventions of an opening sequence. Lewis McNally
Every film has to start somewhere; an opening sequence to a film holds a lot of responsibilities, mostly to grab the attention of its consumer so they feel interested enough to continue watching the rest of the film, filmmakers generally have a broad set of rules on developing a conventional opening sequence.
For example, the cinematography in the opening will have a vast variety and almost always include an establishing shot which gives some context of the films location. In the opening sequence of the Warriors, the first shot seen is an establishing shot of a train station, one of the key locations in the film.In our opening, we include a large panning establishing shot similar to that seen in the warriors, this lets the audience instantly recodnise the key locations of the opening and rest of the film.
An accompanying theme or melody to subtly assist in developing emotions towards the audience. For example, Hitchcock’s Psycho’s iconic theme used in the opening is startling and makes the audience startled in return with its high pitched score. In our opening sequence, we use a low pitch and quite droning opening score to open with, this creates a more morbid and dulled atmosphere for the audience and accompanies what the audience should be feeling.
Production logos, titles and credits providing information on the producers/actors who worked on the film, examples would be the various title animations for Hollywood distributors such as Universal. Using live type we produce similar titles and used Photoshop to create a logo for our production company.
Finally, opening sequences are edited and shot in way to develop an interest for the audience, giving them little information, forcing them to ask questions. The thriller Memento is shot using various close ups and extreme close ups, most of the content in each shot is limited and makes little sense until the full opening is viewed, it continues to ask the audience questions about the characters, the location, and the reason for the murder in the beginning of the film.
In our opening sequence for a thriller, we used establishing shots occasionally; examples would include the large pan of the field you see near the beginning of the sequence. This is to hint to some of the locations/features present throughout the rest of the film, although the shots aren’t the first seen in the film.
We included an appropriate soundtrack which develops a feeling of dread and loneliness; this is to accompany both the potential emotions for both the audience and our characters. Productions logos such as the paramount logo are present in the opening sequence along with titles with an appropriate typeface. We decided to keep very little dialogue in our sequence, however this is some narrative which foreshadows elements of the sequence, we did this to notify the audience of the films theme, and we did this without having any dialogue from the two main characters. The shot which includes a picture of the two characters creates an instant relationship between the two, thus why the film cross cuts between these two characters. We obscured the camera behind branches to develop that there’s a far bigger plot and theme beyond a classic kidnapping story, challenging the conventions of linear storytelling.
