By Noor Ahmad

Conventions of an opening sequence

Mood Board

Film company logos allow the audience to know what company the film has been created by and what type of genre to expect. There is usually a sound/Leit motif which goes with the imagery of the logo to further help the audience recognise the “brand” of the film. Some films incorporate the logo into the type of film being shown, for example, Pixar create animation films and before the film begins the animated logo of a lamp jumping across the screen appears.

Film Company Logos

Typography and title of

the filmThe simplicity of the title reflects the film, using the right typography is important as it gives the audience a sense of what to expect and understand the style of the film.

The font type used for Finding Nemo can be easily recognised by

the target audience, so when it comes to

merchandizing and creating products regarding the film,

audience members can easily locate or

understand where to find the goods.

Once again, the typography is easily recognisable and has a stylised look to match the films. In both cases it looks futuristic and communicates the theme of sci-fi.

Opening Credits

The opening credits give the audience awareness of who has created the film, it allows for them to understand the key roles straight away and provides them with a chance to seat themselves and get ready for viewing the film.

Mise-en-Scene and Location

Location is communicated immediately in both social realist films to set a certain atmosphere. In Billy Elliot we see a poor living standard emphasising the working class environment and in Kidulthood the mise-en-scene of a playground is used at the start to prepare the audience for the type characters they might be seeing in the film. By showing a location during the opening scene allows the director to explore the characters rather than set out the type of environment for the rest of the film.

Characters ‘My beautiful laundrette’ establishes the type of characters to be expected in the film by showing a situation only faced by working class or under class people, immigrants and asylum seekers; of course they’re appearance and health indicated they are the first option of the three.

‘300’ uses an animated opening sequence of warrior silhouettes and blood which instantly helps the audiences to adjust to the diagesis of the film providing an Enigma code, where the audience are immediately given the chance to be active and question the characters yet to be revealed.

Twilight uses a voice over during the opening titles to establish the characters rather than using text to adjust the audience into the world of the production.

What impact has this

research had on the

development of your idea?

I have learnt about the different types of sequences such as graphical involvement, a chain of animation with non-diegetic or diegetic sounds, moments where the titles are placed with images or characters.

It has allowed me to consider what I should and should not include with in the beginning of my opening sequence. Openings which use animations are better left alone, as my aim is to create a social realist film opening rather than a flashy Hollywood styled film sequence.

QuestionHowever I still contemplate whether if I should use flash 8 to create an animation which would simply lay out the characters names in a stylized way; films like ‘My beautiful laundrette’ use an animated washing machine cycle to set out the title which doesn’t take away from the social realism in any way as the grittiness of the theme is already set out due to the character's being shown at the very start.

I have thought about using brief establishing shots and a few cut-aways to emphasise a working class environment; although using non-diegetic sounds and music along side the portrayal of location may be an issue as then I would have to compose the music myself, the best option would be to use diegetic sounds which fit within the diagesis I will be trying to create.

I shall further develop my decisions once I start to plot the story and main themes for my production.