Researching openings.

   Today we decided as a group to research film openings. We decided that to do this we needed to look at films with the ones that was our genre, however we decided to explore other genre openings to compare them. We will look at different openings and decide on what openings we liked and why. So that we can then base our decisions on what we see and how our ideas will compare and contrast with the ones that we have watched.
    A member of our group seems to like the idea of horror and gory films.She has the opinion that these genres are much more interesting as the openings are tense and they build up suspicion with a smear of blood and tension. Also we had an obstacle to come over as these type of genre can have a varied target audience, although it is a universal genre. Another member of the group thought that a rom com would be a brilliant opening for our film.This is a much more delightful opening compared to that of gory.The themed music is much more lively in the rom com compared to that of horror.
    The openings that we decided to watch were from the films of;

• Monsters inc. ( Animation) 
• Paranormal activity 2 ( Horror )
• Sinister ( psychological Thriller )
• Hitch ( Romantic comedy )

We took our time and looked at the first 2 minutes of the films, then we compared and contrasted them to one another. We all took a film each and compared them. We also took into account what films had what institutions and the reasons why they might of chosen that specific institution and how relevant they are. After we viewed all of them we looked at, what music they used, how the text came up ( not using the word or phrase ' staring '  and the types of shots that they used. In most of these openings they had longer shots than what we need , but they still done quite a bit in the valid space of 2 minutes.
   We also had a look out for what fonts that they used and the colour ; this is so that it does not clash with the back ground or so that you cant see it. So they wouldn't use red writing on a purple back ground as it wont stand out, so they would be more likely to use white colour. As well as the size of the font as if it was thin and not bold or scroll type writing. It needs to be easy to read and to be seen. So the font needs to be bigger. The type of font is deadly important as you cant have a font that people cant see from a certain distance. As well as the fact that it will have to suit the genre;- so for a comedy you cannot have gothic writing as this would just look out of place.

   Most of the film openings started with establishing shots and others started with a scene where there was a conversation. When a character is talking usually the do not put the names of the actors on the screen. This is because it is a close up of the actor and usually what they say is rather important. Establishing shots are mainly used for when the title is about to come up. This is because they want a simple background for the text to be on, if it was over a scene where people are doing something important to the plot line then the viewers will try to concentrate on both or this would just distract them. All of the openings were different from one another, so as usual the group had different decisions about how we should do our opening.
     Some other movies use the other materials such as clip art, animation, shots as well as pictures amalgamated into one thing, rather than just moving clips. This does sound very simple but it is also very effective.
   After watching different openings we managed to decide what bits we was going to use for our opening. This included;

• what institutions we was was going to use - we managed to get this down between Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios.
• what style of font and the colours and whether they was going to clash or be on an establishing shot- we decided to have our text appearing on an establishing shot as well as bold white bold writing.

 By watching these film openings we have realised what conventions were needed for the opening. This meant we had to focus on more precise things in order for our opening to not look tacky and for it to suit our target audience.