The Genre of Choice...

    After some serious deliberation and some ideas have been thrown out and discussed, my team and I have made the decision for the film opening to be a sci-fi drama. This is a slight devation from what I origially had in mind, but the idea that we have attached to it is (and not to toot my own horn) very cool. 

    As a result of this decision, I am going to take some time now to look at some film opens for sci-fi dramas and see what elements I could pick up on to use in my own film opening. 

Arrival (2016)

    When several alien spacecrafts land on Earth, a linguistic professor and a team of scientists enter one of the ships with the intent to communicate with the aliens with the hope of saving the world from international crisis. 

    The main purpose of the opening scene of this film is to develop character and to establish why she is the way she is for the rest of the film. 

    This scene does an excellent job of developing character. Through the shot composition and the mise-en-scene the audience can instantly understand that our main protagonist is a mother, who was/is married, and it is understood the deep, intense relationship she has with her daughter. With that, the understanding goes deeper with the voice over, which establishes (at least to the main character) the beginning, middle and end of her proverbial life. 

    With the idea my team nad I have been cooking up, establishing character is extremely important to make our film opening work. There are going to be some more dialogue bits then are in this opening scene, but I think we could go even deeper into the character development of our character with costuming elements and props, as this opening does. 

The Prestige (2006)

    Two rival magicians are vying to have the best magic trick of all time in their shows. After one of the magicians performs the ultimate trick of teleportation, the other drives himself insane and to dangerous measures trying to replicate it. 

    Can I just say before we get into that this movie... this movie. The plot twist at the end of this movie had me gnawing at the walls of my enclosure. Truly. 

    Anyway, the opening scene of this movie does a great job establishing a mystery and intrigue

    

    What I find interesting about this opening scene is how it leaves so many questions, but in a way that leaves the audience longing for more answers. Through the face paced editing and the cross cutting between the magic trick and the old man, it allows the audience to learn about what is going on and the steps of a magic trick along with an example, that being Hugh Jackman's character's magic trick. Also, it acts as a signal that everything that is being said and shown now will most likely be important later on in the film.

    The premise of my film opening does depend a lot on that element of mystery and it is what will keep views watching til the very end. I do not think it would work to do it in the exact same way that this film does it, but I like how it creates the mystery is such a casual and flowy way where it does not feel forced upon, and I would like to incorporate that. 

Signs (2002)

    A family living on a secluded farm gets their lives inturuped when they notice a crop circle engraved in their cornfields. Now, they are not alone in this as there have been hundreds spotted around the world as a predecessor to an alien invasion.

    What stuck out to me with this film's opening scene is the use of diegetic and nondiegetic sound, and I would like to incorporate this balance in some way. 

    

    Throughout most of the scene there is only diegetic sounds; the wind, the floor creaking, the dogs barking, etc. This creates a tone that feels serious and unsettling , which makes sense since the family has obviously discovered something very strange. But the interesting part about the sound is that the nondiegetic sound does not come in until we get that high angle shot of the crop circle. There is a sort of eerie yet epic music that plays as it is revealed. This plays of the juxtaposition between the small down farm and the big scope of the crops circles. 

    To be able to use sound as it is used in this intro scene would add not only ambiance and atmosphere, but give subliminal messages to the audience. I am not exactly sure how I could incorporate this, but I really want to use a lot of diegetic sound to make the atmosphere feel very realistic, plus the sounds in my film opening are genuinely important to the plot. 

    That's all for now, but I feel like there is just so much information running through my head that it's hard to keep it all in my brain. I'm so glad that my trust blog is here to hold all my ideas. 

    And now for the movie quote of the day... (maybe it's a little hint to my project idea)

"I'd rather die with you than live in this world without you, emphatic period!" - Nyles, Palm Springs (2020)