Style of our Opening Sequence

This post was made in part for the purpose of aiding us in presenting a proposal to teachers and classmates to get feedback on our work so far. 

Our film opening is going to open with an action scene at a party. Action will take place at the beginning of the film, with a teenager overdosing at a party. This uses the enigma code to set up the rest of the film and the audience will want to find out what happened, and why it happened.The enigma code is a good code to use in a film opening sequence because it entices the audience to continue watching the film, and creates questions in their heads that they want answered and can only get answered if they continue to watch the film.

By starting the film opening from the perspective of the main character and moving forwards as the main character does, seeing everything that is happening around her and at the party from her perspective allows the audience to try and understand the main character, and feel like they know her without having actually being introduced to her.  We see her perspective and see her leave the room at the party, but do not know much about her; again adding to the enigma code. Moving as she does, through the party and eventually leaving the party also makes the opening sequence seem like the start of a journey. The audience have begun the journey too, moving with the main character and as action and events happen along the way, they want to see where the journey ends, which would also help the opening sequence to begin to form a structure, that would go on through the whole film. This does follow the convention of introducing character and setting the scene in the opening sequence, but is quite an unconventional way of doing it.

Other conventions of opening sequences we plan to follow in ours are:

- Music that helps to signify genre, introduces the dark, black comedy elements of the film, at the same time as setting the scene of the party within the first scene. The music can also help to set the atmosphere of the whole film.

- The film studio/production company logo

-The opening credits including the producer, director, main actors and so on, all of which are able to attract certain audiences because of previous work

- Set up the genre through character, mise en scene, iconography, themes, editing, and sound

I watched the opening of Heathers, a film my group and I watched for inspiration for our film idea and opening sequence.  It begins with the logo for the production company and then shows the names of the main characters on screen.  Following this, there is a shot of the back of a girls head and she is tying up her hair, and the title of the film ‘Heathers’ appears on screen. 

We have taken some inspiration from this film opening sequence, as they show one of the main characters in the film but without us seeing them, or understanding them or knowing their role in the film yet. We then get a LS of the girl and 2 friends sitting in the garden, but we still do not know them and have not been introduced to them. You see their actions, but do not feel like you yet know the characters as you have not been introduced. You want to know their role in the film, and the type of characters they are playing, as credits are also appearing on screen.