Conventions of a film opening
Setting up a character to show how they act and to show how they would act for the rest of the film, for example for conventional film openings such as blockbuster films that usually opt for this type of opening such as the film ‘Se7en’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEZK7mJoPLY) which consists of a famous cast (Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Spacey) which shows the film’s main character William Somerset played by Morgan Freeman getting up to go to work, already it is shown that he is a detective and a veteran of this profession, there is explicit evidence given to this such as the cop badge shown. However, this is just one example of a blockbuster film opening and this film shown as an example is an extremely critically good film as well as being a high concept film, whilst the large majority bulk of high concept films simply show the films stars an example being the new film ‘Machete’ which only shows stills of the films main stars (used to sell the film, the main aim of high concept films, to gain audiences.)
Another aim of conventional film openings is to show the theme or style of the film that is about to be shown such as the English drama ‘This is England’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBpJ4ZuFP8E), which instead shows the types of images that the audience would associate with the time period which the film is set in , in this film the time period is the early 1980’s such as the Falklands war and the theme of skinheads. An example of the styling that would be used could be shown in the opening of ‘Sin City’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VspdKtdsku8) which is an American comic book action thriller, which alike the film ‘Machete’ contains an opening which contains the films main stars in stills but in the style of the film. The films style is described as ‘neo-noir’ and influenced by old detective movies but with a contemporary style by using comic book style graphics.
USE
Genre – For our film we aimed to create a psychological thriller alike the kind of genre that the film ‘Shutter Island’ portrays.
The psychological thriller is described as a sub-genre of the thriller and makes the audience rely on more mental resources and implicit evidence within the film unlike physical resources and explicit evidence. A very good example of a director which uses these techniques would be Alfred Hitchcock (Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest) who relies on the audience to make assumptions through the more subtle parts of the film rather than the more explicit and also creates a tense atmosphere in the audience through suspense (Knife killing scene Psycho) and not through action. In our film opening we try to use this kind of filming with the use of sound to create an uneasy atmosphere inside the room and around the house rather than using action to generate the same reaction.
Camera Work – The small dialogue in our film opening can be shown to be alike the camera work shown in the beginning of the Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwusCDRiDwE). The clip shows a man and a woman discussing robbing a restaurant, the camera work used however to show there conversation is not conventional over the shoulder shots but simply CU and MS of the two people head on and side on from the table they are sitting on. This would be used to create distance between the two characters and focus’ on the characters individually rather than the opposite person entering the frame, creating a more intense atmosphere.
In our film opening the conversation between Tomos and the Man is filmed in the same way, it is CU of the man and a MS of Tomos rather than over the shoulder shots. Each of them is on different sides of the frame, Tomos being on the right and the man being on the left side of the frame. The man is filmed with a CU to create a more menacing atmosphere around the character.
Settings and Location – A good example of an influence in our opening would be the setting in the opening of Casino Royale, a large modern and empty office building with the one man walking to his office alone. This alike our setting as it builds on the fact that Tomos is alone and there is no one there with him or in a way protect him, alike the man they are both shown as vulnerable
The filming used in Casino Royale makes it look like the man is the only one inside of the building such as filming long shots of a big dark hallway and stairs and yet it allows a person to already assume that something is about to happen to the man or someone, such as James Bond, will appear or have something to do with the scene, as it happens he does. In our sequence, Tomos is filmed entering the room alone and closing the door yet the audience does not know whether someone is in the room or even outside it, in the beginning you can only see the hallway of the house and nothing else therefore the audience is also left to assume that someone else maybe outside his room or in the house as well as the man.
Costume and Props – For the costumes we wanted to make the Dad seem as normal as possible to hide is insecurity and to also not give away his true personality, Tomos would be dressed as a normal teenager. The props we wanted to include such as the German passport to show that he was from Germany and also the shoes inside of the cupboard to suggest there had already been a boy staying at that room were not shown due to the lack of time in the sequence and we wanted to include different shots that would increase the tense atmosphere, another subtle prop we used was a photo of a boy in the hallway to suggest that there was a boy living in the house before Tomos. These would all be used to effect as it would leave the audience to think about the setting and the characters through implicit evidence such as the mysterious picture of the boy in the hallway, rather than a script explaining the characters.
Sound – In our film we aimed to have the background music add to the suspense in our opening, such as Tomos being alone in the room and the heightening of the volume of back track. The first track that opens our film is
DEVELOP
Editing – For editing we wanted the continuity to be the best it could be whilst editing we found that doing shorter shots at a time this looked better in the sequence rather than doing longer shots, this can be shown in the room sequence whilst we did use longer established shots when Tomos is walking away from the station. This can be shown in the opening scene for the Collateral
The clip shows the main character who is played by Tom Cruise walking through a crowded airport and we also see another character played by Jason Statham walking also through the same airport, already we assume that they are about to meet. The editing in this scene would include using the use of filters, the airport is given a grey tone to make it seem more boring and to also blend with Tom Cruise who is wearing a grey suit, making him appear more inconspicuous. Slow motion editing is also used for Cruise as well as the heightening of his footsteps to show a cool and slick character is in no hurry, whilst Statham is not in slow motion but also has his foot steps heightened to show that he is in more of a hurry and maybe to show that he is panicked.
In our film even though we did not use slow motion, we did want to use filters for certain scenes such as when Tomos is walking from the station, a grey or black tinted filter overlayed on the sequence would have made the scene more eerie and gritty especially when he is walking down the alleyway by himself. The sequence also includes Tomos walking up the stair to his room, we heightened the sound of his footsteps going up these stairs to simply make it clearer that he was going up the stairs and cut out background sound to add more suspense to the film.
Style – We wanted to develop the kind of style used in the film Control which portrays the lead singer of the band Joy division from his teenage years to his death. The film has a particular style as a dramatic fly on the wall documentary; our film also uses this fly on the wall technique in which there is very few POV shots and more medium or close up shots of the character and the settings.
This technique may also make the audience feel that someone or something is watching the main character Tomos, which later on in the film adds to the tension of certain scenes such as Tomos discovering about the previous boy before him, by filming from a certain distance the audience is made to feel nervy and to think that something is about to occur or someone knows he has found out.
CHALLENGE
Title Font – For our title font we used the font called ‘Confusion Girl’ which we downloaded from the internet. We thought it looked good as a graphic in our sequence as it fitted nicely into the style of our film an edgy, psycological thriller. We used this font to show the two actors who were in our film and also the actors who would also be in the film if it were to be a feature, for most of these they entered and exited the screen through a cross dissolve to make it simple yet effective. However, for our main actors name we thought it would like good if it looked like his name was in the background as in our sequence it is fixated on a train station wall, and as he walks by he is also wiping off his name from the background. This shot makes the audience know that the guy from the station to the house is the main character Tomos. Other thoughts we had about the titles would be when they would finish, to keep the suspense of the scene inside the house we decided to finish all of our main titles before Tomos shows up outside the house as therefore the audience would not be distracted by the titles on the screen and more interested in the character and the setting. This I think challenges normal conventions of titles as it we used different ways of the title entering and exiting the screen as opposed to simply cross dissolving on all of the credits,
Lovely work Charlie!
ReplyDelete