Existing Film Opening Research

From the film 'Se7en', 1995.

The opening to this film uses lots of extreme close up shots to let viewers have an idea of the genre and the themes of the film right from the beginning. By using multiple extreme close ups, the viewers only see a part of what is happening; they cannot see what is happening around the shot which adds a sense of mystery, keeping the audience guessing and interested right from the start. They know something is happening outside of the shot as there are shadows moving around in the shot, such as 8 seconds into the clip, and parts out of focus moving, at 29 seconds into the clip we see part of an unfocused hand turning the page of the book. The shots are quite short and some clips are so quick they appear to flash so the audience don't get to see them well. There is some overlay of shots used, where an overlay of text appears over the main shot or where we see two shots playing over each other at once.

From watching this clip, I can see that there is a very strict colour scheme, only sticking to neutral colours such as blacks, browns, greys and whites. This suggest simplicity or something quite natural, which relates to the story as this film is about a serial killer who targets people who commit the seven deadly sins - which are, nowadays, quite natural emotions/things people do. About a third and two thirds of the way, the opening also uses the colour red which suggests blood, danger or death will occur at around these times in the film.

The text telling us the name of the film, actors and directors etc appears on a separate black background or a dark area of a shot. The text is white and the typography used looks like it has been hand written. By having the text in contrasting colours it makes it clear for the audience to read and obvious to see when watching the film. The titles are quite evenly spaced out and evenly timed which make the opening credits flow. The title of the film appears for a bit longer than and before the names of actors and directors as it is important to let the viewers know what film they are watching.

The music sets the mood of the film as being quite eerie yet is has a defined beat. At 1:12 the music builds up and more sounds are added and layered which could suggest there will be action happening later on in the film after ideas and things build up. There are no lyrics in this opening which does not distract the viewers from the shots however there is one line at the end of the opening which i make out to be 'You put me closer to God.' This relates to the storyline as God does not want people to sin and the 7 Deadly Sins are the main or most common sins that people commit.

Title Timing

For our final film piece we must create a 2 minute opening of a film, including titles. We looked at the opening titles of the film 'Juno' to learn how the titles were timed and what effects the timing had on the opening scene.

I watched this clip and worked out the times at which each title appeared. Here is a list of the titles that appeared in the scene and the time they appeared:

By doing this, I learned about the timing and the effects that it gives. It gives the opening a more structured feel as we can see that the timing of the titles has been carefully considered and that they have not been added in at a random times with no thought behind them. From studying this, I can now apply this knowledge of effective timing to when I produce my own film opening. From this, I have learned that the titles have been quite evenly timed out with none or very small gaps in between. The title's range from 2 seconds to 6 seconds which is quite a narrow range. This makes the opening quite face paced which may suggest that the rest of the film may also be face paced and eventful. This is something I will consider applying to my own opening of a film.

Preliminary Task

Last week we planned and filmed our Preliminary Task in groups of 3 or 4. I was in a group with Becky Daniels, Sarah Burke and Gemma Thompson. I took on the role of filming whilst the others acted out the scene. The task set was to produce a short clip of a person walking through a door and having a conversation with someone. The task also needed to include the 'match on action', '180 degree rule' and 'shot reverse shot' techniques.

'Match on action' is a technique where different, multiple shots are used to show something that is happening. In our preliminary task, for example, we used this technique to show the door being opened. We filmed different types of shots for the oppening of the door: a mid shot of Gemma opening the door, a close up of her hand pulling the door open and a mid shot of her going through the door. These different shots will be put together using an editing program later on. To make sure that each shot merges together smoothly with the next, we allowed a few seconds of film before and after the clip we wanted so that editing the clips together to flow well would be easier.

The '180 degree rule' is a technique where the camera stays on one side of the characters, only moving within 180 degrees. We could imagine that the camera is filming from the front of a stage and can't film from behind therefore giving only 180 degrees to film from. We used this technique whilst filming the conversations taking place between Becky and Gemma then later on while Gemma had a conversation with Sarah. This means that the subjects are kept on one side of the camera and the audience feel like they are in front of them watching. We made this obvious by filming from Becky's left shoulder and Gemma's right shoulder for the first conversation, then stayed on Gemma's right and filming from Sarah's left shoulder. This means that the camera stayed on 180 degrees of all the characters.

Lastly, the technique 'shot reverse shot' is where you switch shots, often between two characters. The characters are shown to be facing in opposite directions which gives the idea that the characters are directly opposite and looking at each other, such as in a conversation, which is what we used this technique for. Whilst filming both conversations we shot the speaking character from behind the listening characters shoulder, then switched when the listening character started to speak and so on. By filming from their shoulders, it gives the audience a feel of their point of view and so that they see what the characters are directly seeing in front of them. This technique gives the speaker all of the focus and audience's attention.

The plot of our groups Preliminary task is that Gemma goes to meet Becky to tell her about her engagement with fiancée Tony, whom Becky does not like. Later on, Sarah then meets them and tells them about her new relationship with the same man. This causes an outrage with Gemma who, in the end, slaps her. Overall, I feel that filming our Preliminary task went well. We managed to incorporate all of the required techniques and tasks set. When looking back over the clips, we saw that some clips would flow very well when edited together, thanks to the extra time left before and after the clip.

One problem we faced was framing the characters correctly in each shot. We only filmed hand held, without any tripods etc, which meant keeping the character central and perfectly framed was quite difficult. This meant we had to go back and re do some of the clips. Another problem was trying not to laugh whilst acting and filming. We found our plot and some of the lines spoken amusing which meant we had to take several takes of some clips to get to a point which none of us laughed.

Other than that, we worked well as a group and I look forward to editing the clips together to create a final version.