Monday 27th September - Lesson

On Monday 27th of September 2010, our objective was to gain an understanding of different genres but also at the same time gain a few ideas for our two minute film opening. In this lesson, we watched different examples of film openings. One of the films we watched was Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Above is a video of the first two minutes of the film.
Orginal Video

We watched the opening scene of this film, we noticed that no credits appeared until we were 6 minutes into it. In many films we usually see the credits appear in the first couple of minutes of the opening, but featured films like this one can afford to make their opening scenes quite long.

To help us build up some of our own ideas we looked at many different types of genre, a few of which were:

Comedy- Hot Fuzz, Shaun Of The Dead, Super Bad & Spoofs

Indie Alternative- Juno & 500 Days Of Summer

Horror- Se7en

Chick Flick- Sex In The City

Brit Film- Kidulthood

Action- Matrix, The Born Identity & James Bond

Documentary- Supersize Me

This is an article about the openings of films
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/sep/23/bass-opening-credits

Step Up Opening

Movie details:

Everyone deserves a chance to follow their dreams, but some people only get one shot. Tyler Gage is a rebel from the wrong side of Baltimore's tracks, only one thing that stands between him and an unfulfilled life are his dreams of one day making it out of there. Nora is a privileged ballet dancer attending Baltimore's ultra elite Maryland School of the Arts and the only thing standing in the way of her obviously brilliant future is finding a great dance partner for her senior showcase. When trouble with the law lands Tyler with a community service gig at Maryland School of the Arts, he arrives as an angry outsider, until his skills as a gifted street dancer draw Nora's attention. Now, as sparks fly between them, both on and off stage, Tyler realizes he has just one performance to prove that he can step up to a life far larger than he ever imagined.

Genres: Drama, Musical/Performing Arts and Teen
Filming Locations: Baltimore, Maryland USA
Produced in: United States

The whole of the opening of step up shows young people dancing with a soundtrack in the background which fits in very well with the dance moves and also the theme of the whole film.

As the dancing goes on opening credits continue throughout.
Some medium close-ups and frequent cross cuts are used.

Wide shots also known as the long shot are also used, this allows us to see the entire person or area, an example of this can be seen the third time the ballet dancers appear as you can see the entire person and area as the camera swiftly moves to the left allowing us to see more.

An example of a close up appears straight after the title of the film fades away and only the waist down can be seen of the ballet and street dancers.

Film making techniques.

Se7en opening credits.

The opening credit to this film has a creepy design and the music sounds spooky. The images and the text are dark, dirty, scruffy, scary and perfectly convey the idea that we’re going to be watching a complete psycho at work. The font of writing that has been used is edgey and colours such as black, browns and reds have been used for the background which really sets the tone.

Ghost Ship opening credits.

The film Ghost Ship is made up of three very similar genres which include horror, mystery and thriller. It is easy to guess what genre the film may be made up of  due to a few give aways such as the titile of the film, creepy sound effects in the background and also the way the singers voice changes from normal into an echoing sound. This opening also gets into the point of the film quite quickly which is why its one of my favourites.