My research
film openings analysis
As a group we all have decided to take one film opening to analyse and take ideas from and then put them all together to help us grasp a wider range of ideas to help us create our film opening.
our final film analyses:
Sinister - 2012
Thriller/Horror
Produced by: Blumhouse Productions
Thriller/Horror
Produced by: Blumhouse Productions
I decided to review the horror movie, Sinister, a blumhouse production as I felt the opening of it had a lot of Similarities to the idea we came up with towards our film opening.
The opening on Sinister starts with a family moving into a house in which several crime scenes have occurred in the past. The main character in the film that we can identify straight away is the man, Ellison. In the first 10 minutes of the film he immediately acknowledges some unusual things that build towards more extreme and terrifying events. One example of this is when Ellison goes up into the loft to check it out and he sees a scorpion on the floor. This isn't that major of an event but it is part of the build up towards a larger thrill. We incorporated a similar structure into our film opening in which our character experienced some minor symptoms such as a nose bleed and having random bruises appear on himself. These symptoms aren't that unusual, similarly to the scorpion in the loft, however, in Sinister a few minutes later everything begins to get a bit more paranormal. Ellison reviewed some footage on the subject of previous families that had lived in the house and had been brutally murdered. Ellison then reacts in a shocked and almost anxious way which foreshadows him soon also becoming a victim. In our film our character also experiences something paranormal and completely out of the blue, when he wakes up covered in the blood and sees "you're next" written in blood on the mirror later on in our film.
The opening on Sinister starts with a family moving into a house in which several crime scenes have occurred in the past. The main character in the film that we can identify straight away is the man, Ellison. In the first 10 minutes of the film he immediately acknowledges some unusual things that build towards more extreme and terrifying events. One example of this is when Ellison goes up into the loft to check it out and he sees a scorpion on the floor. This isn't that major of an event but it is part of the build up towards a larger thrill. We incorporated a similar structure into our film opening in which our character experienced some minor symptoms such as a nose bleed and having random bruises appear on himself. These symptoms aren't that unusual, similarly to the scorpion in the loft, however, in Sinister a few minutes later everything begins to get a bit more paranormal. Ellison reviewed some footage on the subject of previous families that had lived in the house and had been brutally murdered. Ellison then reacts in a shocked and almost anxious way which foreshadows him soon also becoming a victim. In our film our character also experiences something paranormal and completely out of the blue, when he wakes up covered in the blood and sees "you're next" written in blood on the mirror later on in our film.
One shot in particular that I liked a lot was the close ups they used when showing Ellison's expression when reviewing the tapes of the murder scenes. This shot is used to show off the shock and horror in the face of the character and present their emotions and feelings to the audience. We planned to incorporate shots like this into our film opening in the bathroom scene as it would give the audience a real understanding on how the character felt.
I was especially fond of the editing used in the first scene where Ellison was looking at some of the footage of the previous murders that happened in the house he moved into. He experiences a jump scare whilst watching some of this footage and begins to panic a bit. Commencing from the moment he started panicking, there was series of short takes of him from different angles including close ups of his face, the tape recorder and medium shots of the room. We also planned to have a scene similar to this which would be the scene in the bathroom. Our character would be in shock due to seeing "you're next" written in blood on the mirror followed by the door randomly slamming shut. As soon as that would happen we would have several short takes in a quick sequence to show the panic the character would be experiencing.
our initial film analyses:
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: (2001)
I decided to do an analysis on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This is because I felt the introduction of the movie was very similar to our idea of showing character(s) from a very young age and then them a bit grown up. In the opening of Harry Potter we see Harry Potter as a baby with a scar on his forehead and for our film opening we used a very similar approach.
I decided to do an analysis on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This is because I felt the introduction of the movie was very similar to our idea of showing character(s) from a very young age and then them a bit grown up. In the opening of Harry Potter we see Harry Potter as a baby with a scar on his forehead and for our film opening we used a very similar approach.
In the first 30 seconds of Harry Potter we see a few different shots of Dumbledore. One shot used that I felt stood out was a low shot looking up at Dumbledore. This shot was used to show Dumbledore was a very powerful and big character right from the off. Dumbledore is then seen as a very important character in the movie. Another very relevant shot used within the opening minutes of Harry Potter was the extreme close up shot of Harry as a baby when we see his scar as it glows up. This shot signifies the scar to be a very relevant and to show it as a key part of who Harry Potter is.
I felt that the use of the non-diegetic music when Harry Potter's scar glowed up gave off an essence of mystery and suspense because it was like the movie had really just started and it gave the scar a very symbolic meaning to show it would be relevant in the rest of the movie. As well as this in the opening scene there was a few long takes when Dumbledore, Hagrid and Professor McGonagall which shows that the scene is meant to be slow and show off each characters emotions individually. Long takes are useful because they slow down the tempo of the whole scene and makes a scene more dramatic.
I felt the camera work in the opening scene of Harry Potter was sublime in the fact that they used several different shots in order to show off objects and people in specific ways. One key example I noticed was when there was a close up on the object Dumbledore was holding to take the lights from the lamps across the street. The close up on this object portrays the object in a significant way but shows it is abnormal and magical. Another shot I felt that was used really well was when a pan shot was used on Hagrid and he was landing down on his motorbike. This shot was used to show that he was an important character in the scene. Also the pan shot almost focused on the motorbike that Hagrid was riding and this showed Hagrid was a unique and unusual character as he was flying on a motorbike.
As our plot is mysterious, it was very vital that we knew if people actually enjoyed these types of films. The data above does in fact tell us that do they enjoy them. This comes as a great relief as our opening is very puzzling to say the least. |
Finally, the last screenshot asks the audience what their favourite genre of film is - which we provided between the most popular and common choices that our target audiences would make. It seems that most of them enjoy action, with rom-com coming in as close second. Whilst our opening may contain some action parts, it is mainly a thriller based film. This does not effect us majorly, because we are confident that our opening will still be enjoyable.
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