Opening Scenes

Yesterday we watched eleven different opening two minutes of films from a variety of genres, these included Gangster, Musicals, Horror. Below is a few detailed descriptions of some of the clips we watched.

From watching these we could clearly see that we had chosen the right genre for the type of film we wanted to create. Which is Horror as this would be more realistic for us to re-create.

Gangster:
Kidulthood - this starts of quite dark and the establishing shot is in a stereotypical school setting, the soundtrack that we here at the beginning is up beat and high tempo. The font used for the opening titles of this film are white and they are a small size text. The start of Kidulthood seems quite high paced and it fasts forward then slows down. They use a wide fvariety of camera angles and some of these are pan, zoom, long shot and mid shot.
Get Carter - This is very slow to get into. We dont here many sounds apart from two simple alternating high notes at the very begining and also sounds from the click of the projector which is amplified and the dialogue in the scene. We do not see any titles during this opening two minutes. Again many camera angles used some are mid shot, low angle, close up and high angle.
Good Fellas - this was another film that yet again started very dark, The sounds we hear are of cars driving along a road as the titles flash across the screen, and then we hear a bang from the boot of the car this sound is amplified. The titles are white and red which connotates skin and blood. The music is quite up beat and also high tempo. What is unusual about this film is that as the titles are rolling it will cut to a bit of action e.g. the trees and then cut back to the white credits on a black background.

Musicals:
Hairspray - there is an establishing shot over Baltimore and this starts quite intense. The sounds used are up beat again and high tempo, there is a good use on diagetic and non diagetic sounds in the opening scene. The film title then comes up this says HAIRSPRAY in large bold green bubble writing. It emerges from a foggy cloud of hairspray. After the film titles come up it stereotypically goes straight into a song from the musical.
High School Musical - This starts very bright and it starts with mainly dialogue, the music is up beat and when it switches to the party scene there is diegetic sounds used e.g. stereotypical party noises. It didnt start with a song like Hairspray did and imstead starts intros=ducing the characters straight away.
Grease - This starts on a beach with a couple in the sunset. It starts quite happy but more unusual it starts with what could be percieved as the end of a romantic film. They use bright colours and up beat music. They also use a variety of shots e.g. long shot, two shot, pan, establishing shot and many more. The titles are in a cartoon format and they are a variety of colours, these are centered.

Horror:
Saw II - This starts dark aswell, we hear heavy breathing, not alot happens during the opening scene. It looks more effective as there is lightbulbs flashing and the noises we hear are represented in alot of horror movies. There is point of view shots and extreme close ups used to add even more effect to the horror aspect.