Researching Openings

Today our group have been researching openings. We have been looking at other genres too because we have not decided what genres we want to do for our opening, we will look at the opening and base our decisions on what we see because we all have different ideas of what genres we would like to do.
Jessica likes the idea of horror and gore, she believes it is a much more interesting genre as the opening is tense and gets straight into the middle of it, although it varies in target audience it is a much more universal genre, however, Laura likes the idea of a genre in a rom com opening, it is much happier then horror and the music is much more interesting then the ones used in horror.
We have decided to look at the following opening:
- Hitch (Romantic Comedy)
- The Butterfly Effect (Psychological Thriller)
- Paranormal Activity (Horror)
- Tangled (Animation)
We look at each of these films and different genre and compared them but also looked at the contrast of both films. We looked at the institutions each film has used and the relevance of them. After we checked how the film had opened, the type of music they had used, how they bought the names of the stars up (not using starring) the types of shots they had used. Although their shots are longer, it is still interesting and we have to do the same in the space of 2 minutes.
We also checked what fonts they had used, we realised how careful they were with the colour font, so it is not the same as the background colour, the size of the fonts they used, not too big and not too small. The type of font they use in the genre had to be relevant, for example, in a horror movie the font in the title will not be small and bubbly because it would look out of place.
I had then realised that the shots they used were mostly establishing shots unless it started with a conversation. When a character is talking they do not often put the names of the stars up, this is because it is a close up and what the main character or the character is saying in the opening is very important. However there is elements of establishing shot, which is mainly used when the title is coming up, this is because they want a simple background of a landscape, not someone having a conversation to distract them from the title. Other movies use clip art and animation, shots and pictures combined together, not just moving clips. This is simple but very effective. All the openings are different, some of the people in the group preferred the way other genres used the opening and the other half of the group did not.
After watching the opening we will discuss which genre we will pick for our opening. The institutions we will use for the particular opening, the font, shots and plan everything out. The film openings have made us realise which part we have to focus on in order to keep the opening look professional and suitable for our chosen target market.