Opening Scenes Reserach

 The key elements of Film openings are:  Key characters, Methods that have been used, Genre specific conventions, and Type of openings.

Key Character: Setting, Tone, Main characters, Theme, Openin shot

Methods:Metaphor, Character Placement, Dreams, Shot types, Flash foward

Type of openings: Teaser, Inciting incident, Cold openings, Day in the Life, Prologue Montage The blantant open

Genre- Specific Conventions

Cold Open- Humour/ action/ crime prologue- pantsy/ epics

Exciting day in the life- Action

Summary:

The opening sequence is such an important part of a movie becuase it helps you with your first impression of the movie. And they do all that by having the key elements and the purpose of the opening sequence.

Purpose

To introduce the villain

To introduce the hero

To establish relationships

To establish Genre's

To find the plot catalyst

The similarities of the opening scene irrespective of the genre is The editing, cuts, and the shot type. Even though they always do it just know at some point of the story they will at least have some of the same editing, shot types, and Cuts.

Some conventions of a Action Movie is good versul evil, Good always wins, Hero villain and victim

Some convention of Comedy is that usually all scenes are bright, nd light is on the actors as they are normally the ones you need to see for the comedy. 

Action. Sci-Fi, Comedy, Mystery

Action Conventions:

Clearly defined hero, victim, and villain

Hero’s object of desire is to stop the villain and save the victim

Power divide between hero and villain is large

Speech in praise of the villain

A question Of morales

The villain is the force of antagonism that creates conflict by endangering the victim, which causes a specific object of desire to arise within the hero. The villain wants something that puts the victim at risk. Villains come in different varieties: an aspect of the environment, another person or group of people, the state or other large organization, or time. The nature of the villain narrows your choice of subgenre. 

Sci-Fi Conventions

The genre incorporates hypothetical and science based themes into the plot of the film

The genre often includes futuristic elements and technologies to explore social, political, and philosophical issues.

Diegetic: machinery/technology sounds, alarms.

Close ups of eyes

.Red lighting to show danger.

The elements Sci-fi usually have is

Time travel, Teleportation.Mind control, telepathy, and telekinesis. Aliens, extraterrestrial lifeforms, and mutants.Space travel and exploration, Interplanetary warfare.Parallel universes.Fictional worlds.

Comedy Conventions 

usually characters are happy or exaggerate a certain type of role

usually a basic plot, designed primarily to make the audience laugh, normally with an underlying message such as friendship

Comedy

close-ups to capture characters’ expressions, mid shot to capture stance and background, long shots focus on location of the characters which may be of importance to the plot, a zoom between shots can be used in humour, such as long shot to close-up showing a characters responding expression, or a close-up to long shot to reveal odd location or costume.

 Most of the time the music would be light-hearted in sound. A deliberate wrong choice of music genre for a scene could also be used to create a comedy moment. There may also be some use of slapstick sound effects when someone is injured.

Fast cuts for joke after joke based comedy and slower cuts between scenes for a build up to a punch line. Hardly any use of special effects as most comedies are set in real life situations.

Mystery

Conventions:

The Murder. The murder is the central plot in any murder mystery.

The Murderer, even though the author doesn't reveal the murderer until the end of the book, the murderer is an important character

The victim

The detective

The clues

Misdirection and twists

There are many different settings for Mystery films.

They can be set in remote countryside towns with a low population density that are miles away from the nearest phone. Pretty much anywhere where a small group of people can be cut off from the world.

But they can also be set in large cities for films based around murder mystery and crime.

Good settings for mystery films can be: police stations; big cities (typically London); big country houses; small countyside houses; deserted areas; isolated areas; forests; Heros home; city streets; forensic labs; hospitals; warehouses; docks; lakes; fields.

Summary