Initial Ideas

These are just initial ideas in preparation for my opening scene.

Through talking to Katie and my teacher, we have come up with initial ideas. Firstly we watched the opening to Romeo and Juliet. We liked how the in the beginning there was a commentator who explained the narrative as its quick and easy to understand. The commentator was set out on tv and it zoomed in further towards her. We also talked about that we needed a inebitable ending to help with a basic narrative like the Titanic. We understood that we would have to have children as actors as its about a teen drama. We came up with a few people who might be able to participate in ur video. After the narrative talker we wanted an opening a bit like "Juno". this is were the main character is only present Lastly we talked about stop motioning, as we really like this effect and we know how to apply this. This is just ideas that we may consider developing in the future.

Romeo and Juliet Opening Scene

Juno Opening Scene

Example of Stop Motion 

Analyse Previous Students Work

For this task I will look at previous OCR students opening scenes to give me some inspiration to help create my own. I shall also discover grade boundaries and how grades alter from different pieces of work. This should make me aware of what I need to create in order to get the grade I want. 


The first opening scene was called “Wrong place, wrong time” was fairly poor in my opinion so I feel it was a low grade. Firstly, the camera movement they used for the opening scene was very poor. This made their scenes seem poorly done even though their ideas were good. The camera they used made it so you couldn’t hear the characters when they were talking, it made the slow motion look poorly edited and the picture quality was insufficient. However, the general miss en scene and script of the opening scene was good, as they seemed to delay the characters in beginning and slowly introduce the characters with speech and sound to let the audience know what was happening. Although I wouldn’t call it a horror genre, which is what they were suppose to be portraying. This is because there wasn’t any suspense or scary scenes- it seemed to be more of an action genre. As there was lots of running around and fighting, the fast music helped this along. Also the characters seemed awkward which was reflecting on their acting. The typography they used I feel was appropriate as it was informal as if it had been written- also they way it was edited was very good as it suited the theme. The music they used was also good however when quietening the music down so the character could speak it was poorly done. Furthermore, when the characters spoke you could hear noises in the background, which wasn’t part of the scene, which made it distracting. I felt that the material was very appropriate for teenagers as the characters were teenager. Also some of the scenes they were doing could relate to a teenager’s lifestyle and the setting they would live in. The setting also could have been more morbid as it was set in a busy centre, which didn’t make it scary. Overall I liked their ideas but I did not like how bad the camera was however they did use a range of camera shots.

The second opening scene was called “Captive” and I felt that it would have got the highest grades. I really enjoyed watching the opening scene to this as the editing and camera angles and movement was precise, the quality of the camera was amazing, the character was convincing and I felt scared and uneasy as it was the theme of horror. I felt that the suspense was built up so well but still kept the audience interested. The typography seemed to be scratched away and broken which made it appropriate. It was also in white, which seemed cold and it stood out. The camera made the graphics a very good quality and you could hear the character perfectly. The charter himself was so convincing you could really feel hat the character was feeling. The flashbacks were also a way to show the narrative and helped create flashing scenes, which created a natural thriller scene. The setting was good as it was a deserted place with on one around. It also had vandalism, which made the character vulnerable- it also suited the theme of horror. Lastly the make up on the character was very realistic and scary. The only area of improvement was in minor was a clearer narrative but I felt that if there was a bigger narrative then it would have had the big suspense that it did.

Learning Comments

From watching theses two videos which are opposite ends of the grade boundaries I now know what to avoid in my opening scene and what too include. Also how to apply my opening scenes and any other techniques I have found. I will write it out in bullet points to make it easier thread when looking back:

-Firstly it has to be a good quality camera in order to show my ideas clearly
-Variety of camera angles to show my ability of camera shots
-Setting has to be fully appropriate to my theme- teenage drama or it doesn't give the same effect.
-Characters have to be fairly convincing to the audience.
-Make up on the charaters should also be fairly professional
-Characters have to be heard at all times when speaking and the music needs to be quitened slowly
-Music needs to help set the theme
-Typography is clearer in white and can be linked to a theme
-Simple and clear narative so the audience understand but it doesn't get tedious

Title Research

For this task I had to research the typography in three different films in their opening scenes. 

Learning Comments

From looking at opening scenes I now have an in depth understanding of opening scenes as I have looked at three quality film openings. They all looked really professional so I would like to incorporate this into my work. In order to this I will create a checklist of what I need to include in my opening scene. Check list of what I need in an opening scene for the titles:

- Film Production/s
- Producers e.g. Music
- Designer e.g. Costume
- Main/ Actors
- General Cast
- Film Name
- Broadcasters

Audience Research

For this task I going to complete a quanitive and qualitative research to enable me to qualify audiences. 

Our survey that will ask people (Qualitative):
Create your own user feedback survey 

Our facts and figures memos (Quantitative):

Learning Comments

Firstly we waited until there was a sufficient amount of people that took the survey to make it as accurate as possible so we could get the precise information that would help us more for our opening scene. Overall we have learnt from out survey that we can use information from the audience to have a broad understanding of how we can make our opening scene suit them and specifically add what they want into our video.
From completing our data on our memos we found out that critic and audiences really rate coming of age films. the critics scored high on a popular film and audiences rated coming of age films very high. The cinema companies are also making money from these types of films. Furthermore the producers of these films are making an immense amount of money from these films. This is generally because a variety of people watch coming of age films. As coming of age films have younger based characters more young people tend to watch them, also younger people watch films more than older people. This also boots the number of younger people watching these films. I think that it was a good idea to conduct this research so that we understood that this films are increasing popular and because it was good to see clear figures  however I feel that the data didn't necessary apply to us as we are only making an opening scene.

Director Case Study- Jason Reitman

For this task I'm looking at a specific director and create a auto biography- I have picked Jason Reitment as he directed Juno and his opening scene for it I have analysed. 

Reitmans film career started slow until he made his first big production film called "Thank you for smoking". He continued to make further films that gained him a lot of credit. He is also responsible for arguably the best coming of age films- Juno. For his film career Jason Reitman has earned BAFTA award for best adapted screenplay, Critics' choice Movie award for best screenplay, Golden globe award for best screenplay, Independent spirit award for best screenplay for his films. 

Reitmans films are in the genre of romantic- comedy dramas. In Reitmans films he never really reveals much about the main character, he either doesn't show them till further into the opening scene or shows them without giving anything away about them. This is clever as it creates anticipation for the audience. His style always seems to be very sharp and flawless. The font he uses is always bold- easy to read. The music seems to be very unique and quirky which makes it anything but tedious- the music always fit the narrative. He has a set style when choosing colour for his opening scenes. He uses very bright colours which are visible and easy to follow.  List of films he has directed:

Learning Comments

From studying a specific director I have learnt that they have there own style and how they apply their techniques to their films. When contracting my opening scene I shall incorporate Reitmans way of making his scenes and then use some of my ideas too. This is because Reitman seems to have been very successful by his techniques in previous opening scenes and I am focusing on opening scenes. Although I liked his style, I felt that it did become a bit morbid so I shall have to enlighten my opening scene with a pleasanter opening as I feel this will make my audience react better unless the genre is slightly sad, then I can adapt to it.

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Producers and Distributors

For this task I am going to be looking at four different film producers. I will be looking at both major and minor so get a detailed aspect on all producers.


Learning Comments

From creating this I have learnt the more popular companies are generally more successfully and make more films. However even thought they tend to be more successful even the minor companies do still make decent films as some of them are "coming of age" films. I also discovered that I couldn't notice any obvious difference between the film openings and films in general with any qualities lacking- they seemed to be the same quality. Also the major companies seem to have been established earlier so they have had time to grow and had more experience in the film industry so they can make better films. Furthermore their logo are more recognisable by a lot more people which creates more advertisement. All of the companies I have noticed have very good powerful logos to get peoples attentions at the start of the films. They even have music for their logo being shown which could also be good for advertisement and to make it interesting for the audience as it is the start of a film.

Conventions of an Opening Scene

In this task I had to analyse an opening sequence- I chose the beginning scene of Juno as it is a very well know opening scene. 

Learning Comments

I have learnt that the director has really tried to set the scene for the rest of the film by this opening scene by showing us the main character as he put her as our main focus. However he hasn't given too much away- as we know nothing about the main character. Incorporating this into my video will be hard as i want the audience to know the character and have a sense of narrative. I have also learnt that camera angles are a good way of revealing what you want the audience to see and to put the audience into what the characters may see, this is also good for keeping the audiences attention liked to the film- I could use a range of camera angles to do this as the director did tis too. I now have an idea of the conventions of what makes a good opening scene.

History of Coming of Age Films

In this task i had to look at the history of "coming of age" films. I used a timeline to represent this- the order is chronological. 



Learning Comments

The films I looked at are aimed for a variety of ages and are all recognisable. From completing this task I have learnt that there are a lot of films that are popular that are aimed at 13-19 year olds. These films seem to have grown since the 1980's and it was seen that children could be themselves and explore entertainment by watching films. They have become increasingly popular and are even becoming "coming of age" films. I have noticed some recurring aspects. They all seem to be able to be watched by all ages, as the genre of the films are very appropriate for all ages. For example there isn't a film genre of horror that is a "coming of age film". The characters in the film seem to have bright personalities which links to the style of genre. However although they are suitable for all to watch there is a definite mixture of audience age groups. For example there is a mixture of films for older people to watch and very young to children to watch. The genders also differ, as there is some films that are girls would enjoy watching more perhaps and vice versa.

(A coming of age film focuses on the story of youth to adulthood and is often set in the past)

Film Opening Sequences

In this task I had to look at a variety of opening sequences from different films. I looked at eight different openings and analysed them so I could get an initial sense of opening scenes. 

Skyfall

Fifty Shades of Grey

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Taken 3

Fast and Furious

Forest Gump

Pitch Perfect

Godzilla

Learning Comments

From watching all of the famous opening sequences I have noticed a majority of similarities. They all have a lot in common as they are all great opening scenes. However the content they include in the opening scene are all different which apply to specific films. Firstly the opening scenes always relate to the film whether that be by the use of sound, theme, colour or graphics to symbolise the film. For example The hunger Games was really good at encorperating the theme of death by using hearts and the colour red. Furthermore they all seem to be very powerful openings- when you watched it you really got interested into it. This is obviously so the audience can engage quickly as possible to get them into the film. The use of space was also cleverly used. They did this by the use of sound which was loud. Also by the scenes, there was always something happening- even suspense in some of them to keep watching. Fast and Furious seem to have the most action which would catch the audiences attention. The introduction text was placed so that it was visible but not get in the way of the scenes behind, so the audience would not get irritated and could continue to watch the beginning. The way the they were different was by the use of content, e.g. Godzilla use a fair old background to fit in with the film. A film like pitch perfect did not use the same as it would look distort and out of place. Also they all seemed to be rememberable which is why they are famous, they are all completely different opening scenes that just use the same conventions. Lastly I feel that the openings really did captivate the audience, which is what an opening scene should achieve.