RESEARCH - Conventions of a film opening

 Conventions of a film opening includes:
-Sound FX and Music
- Editing
- Titles/Logos
- Introduction to key characters


The conventions of a film opening consists of many such as Sound FX and Music which helps, for example, fast paced music would help create and build atmosphere to the opening as it signifies excitement while a slow paced music would signify a dark depressing tone. It also gives an indication to the audience of the sense of genre and mood. Overall, it helps the movie to develop a relationship with the audience, to keep the audience at the edge of their seats until the end of the movie.
         Our thriller will evolve around fast tempo kind of sound as it will create major suspense which links to the genre of our thriller. The genre of our thriller is horror/thriller, about a psychopath expressing his desire to kill and torture, therefore a fast tempo kind of sound/music will portray the suspense and tension throughout as this will keep the audience at the edge of their seats until the finnishing line.
         In order to create our sound we will use a program called Garage Band in which will allow us to combine different kind of sounds from instruments to fufill originality to our piece. Some of the instrument sounds will include sounds of violin, this is effective as it sounds dark and evil, the pitch of the violin will be extremely low. Drum beats will be added to create suspense as it signifies a persons heart beating, it may start off with a fast tempo to indicate the trepidation and anxiety of an individual, especially the victim. A slow tempo drum beat could signify the slow pain of a victim or maybe when the victim is almost about to die, therefore the slow drum beat could show that the victims life is fading away.

Here is an example:


The editing is very important in an aspect of establishing characters and plot. A face paced editing montage would avoid giving away the plot to the audience but it will give the audience a sense of the plot instead. This is effective as it identifies certain mis en scene or characters that will be involved in the movie. The use of mis en scene in the opening is vital as it also signifies the expectations of the movie, for example, if there is blood shown, it is likely that the movie will have some sort of violence involved. Inspiring my knowledge of conventions of a film opening, I will take editing as a very important role in creating the best thriller opening possible. Final Cut Pro will be the program that will help us edit our opening, using various of techniques learnt by our teacher and also our own knowledge. For example, we can change the speed of our clips, making them faster or slower to create meaning to the scene. Increasing the speed of a clip will create quick visuals to the audience while decreasing the speed of a clip will portray strong detail.

The Title alongside the names of the production company, distribution will be shown in the opening. The title is important as most of the times it gives the audience a hint of what the film is about, for example, "Dead Silence" may indicate the terror included in the film as the word "Dead" sounds evil.

The distribution company will be shown in the film opening. The Distribution company is responsible for the marketing side of the film (E.g. Advertising, TV, Posters) while the production company handles the film budget, scheduling, and organisation of the product itself. This often tells the audience if the film is mainstream or not. 

An example of a mainstream movie, Skyfall. Distributed by a big company called MGM and Sony Pictures Entertainment. The budget for this movie is estimated at $200,000,000.

 An example of a non-mainstream movie, My Brother The Devil. Distributed by a low budget company called Rooks Nest Entertainment. The budget estimated is a very small budget of $100,000.

My Brother The Devil is a successful film and has won many awards regardless of its low budget. This research that i have done is related as we are creating an opening of a film with a small minimal size budget.