Insidious

 



The opening titles for Insidious are presented on a black background with red writing. This almost foreshadows something bad is going to happen as the connotations of red are blood and danger. The music starts from the very beginning and is low and has a high pitch which creates a horror/ eerie feel to what is happening in shot. This music carries on throughout the 2 minutes but begins to climax at 0:41 when a little boy in bed appears on screen.

The way that the screen fades to black at 1:19 and then suddenly at 1:22 'Insidious' appears on screen in red writing on the screen, causes the audience to jump and therefore has them on the edge of the seat from the very beginning. This is my favourite part of the opening as it sets the expectations for the rest of the films and intrigues the audience to want to see if it lives up to these expectations, which pulls in the attention of the viewer.

At 1:31, a house comes into shot, which is in black and white. This creates a horror feel and helps to set the genre for the film as black and white is a convention for horror movies.

After the climaxing point the music then begins to fade out and return to normal.

Here is the opening for Insidious!

Dolls (1987)

 

In the opening of Dolls the first thing we see is a black background with white writing on, which reads, ' Empire pictures presents'. The opening two minutes for Dolls is relatively simple with nothing really happening. When the actors names appear in order of appearance, they have a doll inside one of the letters which sets the narrative and therefore gives us an insight into what the story is going to be about. The actors names and crediting continues from 0:22 until 2:00, which is a massive amount of time. If I am honest, at this point it made me disengage with what was happening as I became bored.

In the opening that I shall create in my team, I will ensure that our opening 2 minutes aren't boring and that the narrative starts as I think that include parts of the narrative captures the audiences attention and makes it more enjoyable.

Hostel III

 

In the opening of Hostel III, the opening was very quick and went straight into the action. I dislike this as it jumps straight in and doesn't really have much of an introduction to setting or anything. Scott Spiegel directs and produces mainly horror films and programmes and so this is his usual type of film.

 

I like the way that the main colours in the opening are dark, which makes the shot seem cold and depressing, instead of warm colours such as yellows and bright colours. I also like the way that the audience can see more of what's happening than the characters in it. This causes a kind of enigma as we wonder what the relevance of one of characters not being able to see the dagger is used for.



Se7en

The film Se7en was directed by David Fincher and was released in 1995. It is about two detectives, a rookie and a veteran, that hunt a serial killer who then uses the seven deadly sins as his modus operandi.

 

The opening for this is very fast moving and made me as the audience intrigued as to what was going on. It begins with a view of the seam of the book with the pages fanning over. This shot is all in black and white like in psycho, which creates a dulled out, cold effect. The beginning consists of diegetic sounds which match what is happening in the visuals.

 

The titles are presented on a black background, with white writing which makes up the titles. First with the production names, then the director, followed by actors.

 

My favourite part of the opening apart from it being fast paced, is the effects that have been used in the titles- i.e. them flashing and jolting about on the screen, with the action still occurring behind.

 

Se7en opening is below:



Analysis of Horror films (Our chosen Genre)

Psycho (1960)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho is one of the most well-known horror films of all time.

 

 

Psycho was produced in black and white and this was introduced to us from the very beginning of the titles. The Paramount sequence was put in black and white which made us expect it to continue and set the context. The music in the beginning is the same throughout the two minutes and there isn't really a climatic point in the music.

 

In the opening I don't like the way that none of the action of story is carried out in the first two minutes and it is long winded. However this does make the audience want to see what is going to happen and creates enigma and builds suspense.

 

At 1:57, the shot changes to that of a city, which reveals where the story could be set.

 

Below is the Psycho opening sequence:

McGuffins

A McGuffin is something that is used to give more information or to move the narrative along. This is why it is important to understand these when we go into planning and making the opening of a film. To understand what a McGuffin was we watched the beginning of Forrest Gump.

 

The opening of the film features a feather floating through the streets of America and finally landing upon the shoe of a man. The words I associated with the feather were: Light, white, bird, floating, river, pillows, purity, innocence, swan, cowardness, peace and elegance. The feather could therefore represent a journey through life to reach a final point and probably a revelation or final point or peace. This links to what the film is about and therefore is a McGuffin.

 

The next thing that we did was we were given three words and we had to write down everything that came into our heads when we heard them.

 

Buzz Lightyear

The words/ ideas that I associated with this word were:

• Children
• Infinity
• Space
• Toy Story
• Lazers
• Bees
• Flying
• Dream

Cricket Ball

The words/ ideas that I associated with this word were:

• Ashes
• Australia
• India
• White
• Dust
• Bat
• Throwing
• Travelling

Chewing Gum

The words/ ideas that I associated with this word were:

• Tables
• Mouth
• School
• Mint
• Stomach

These are all connotations of a McGuffin. A connotation is the non-literal meaning we interpret of something e.g. a box can connotate feeling of excitement, suspense, anticipation and fear.

 

 

The task- opening sequence of a film

To construct our final piece, we have been put into groups. We are in the process of doing research and the pre-production process. After doing some research me and my group have decided to a horror movie with the subgenres of psychological horror and gore.

To this we had to find out the conventions of a horror film and of the subgenres. We broke the conventions into the narrative and the technical aspects. Below are the conventions that we found...

 Horror (Narrative)

• Mystery, unknown, supernatural
• Withheld information 
• Victim- girls (stereotype that they're weaker)
• Predator- usually a man who is psychologically unstable
• Dark, isolated setting, autumn/ winter
• Hallway
• Woods

Horror (Technical)

• Expanding time
• Strong sound- eery, builds tension (high pitched and more non- diagetic sounds)
• Long shots but quick cuts
• Black/ white and sepia

Subgenres

Psychological Horror (Narrative)

• Can be related to real life, so the audience can place themselves in the narrative
• Reveal even less information
• Isolated
• A predator that is covered by a disguise

Psychological Horror (Technical)

• Glimpses of gore
• Sound- diagetic and non-diagetic etc. doors creaking, heavy breathing...
• Jump cuts
• Dynamically moving

Gore (Narrative)

• Reveals a lot of gore
• Blood
• A stereotypical victim
• A frightening predator

To construct the opening to meet the conventions we will need to ensure that we include a variety of them.

Research

American Splendor (2003)

American Splendor is an American biographical comedy-drama film about Harvey Pekar who is the author of the American Splendor comic book series. Above is the timeline that I drew out for the first 1 minute and 8 seconds.

My favourite part of this opening is the way that the director inbuilt context right from the start, when the text is travelling along the paper and then the comic pages. This allows you to understand what the film is going to be based upon and get a basic understanding of it.

I don't like the way the screen lattices to black at 0:34, before the actors names appear on screen.

Here is the link to the opening for American Splendor:

Research

                 Goodfellas (1990)

As part of my research into film openings i watch the first 2 minutes and 12 seconds of 'Goodfellas'. The picture image is of the timeline i made up of the opening, labeling all the context, sound and titles that i saw, plus the times at which i saw them.

In this opening i liked the way that the title of the film doesn't appear on screen until 2 minutes and that before that was part of the action from the narrative.

Context is introduced from 28 seconds and continues throughout the opening. The first piece of context is in the titles when it says 'This film is based on a true story'.

The opening sequence didn't have any sound until 33 seconds, when a sound of a car was introduced.

Here is the opening to Goodfellas: