Holiday H/W 1: Analysing Film Openings

 During this holiday, I've been looking out film openings that I could use to help me with Thriller that I am going to make later on this year. Here are the two that caught my attention.

This is the opening from the legendary hardcore thriller- Final Destination 5

 

Final Destination 5

In the opening of this movie, it contains the vital conventions such as studio ident and title sequence. When the names of the characters are introduced, the musical score begins to play. it creates a huge amount of tension and suspense by the quick pace of the instrumentation, this gives the audience the impression that the movie is going to have action involved in it. In addition, there are many signs of editing in this opening. For instance, the slow motion used when the glass is being smashed by the range of objects makes the new viewers start asking questions about what type of movie it is going to be and keeps them intrigued. However for the viewers that have already seen the previous franchises, they will know what type of movie it is and this opening simply reassures them about the 'natural' and gruesome deaths that are yet to come. The colour choice of the background happens to be a dark colour. In this clip the black background and light writing illustrates the dark force that is forever lingering and overshadowing the ones that are innocent. The black background behaves like death and sends deadly objects to destroy the bright writing, we can interpret that the black background is death and the bright writing are the victims that are yet to be destroyed by 'nature'. The camera uses a close up and zoom throughout the opening to the movie. From this, the audience can interpret that the characters in the movie are going to be at risk by quick close ups and the zoom is to show there is going to be another victim.

 

 

Next movie I'd like to talk about is Spiderman 2, here's the opening.

This movie is formally introduced by the studio ident, the sound of the violins and the establishing shots creates a blissful and calming atmosphere, almost impersonating a city before it is attacked by a villian.  When the title sequence comes in, the camera uses zoom to the take the audience into the world of Spiderman. It also uses panning to show some of the characters such as Peter Parker and Mary Jane have a special connection between the two. The colour of choice of red and blue are the colours of the super hero, it is to engage the audience in the opening. The images are all animated and visually tells the audience the type of genre it is. The soundbridges are all used to show that the past scenes from the first spiderman are all linked together.