Conventions Of Film Openings

Many conventions of film openings were seen in the film openings of the films Alfred Hithcock’s ‘Psycho’ (1960), Danny Boyle’s ‘Trainspotting’ (1996) and ‘Goodfella's’ (1990) that I watched in class.

                                                    

(Conventions of a film opening are methods / things which have been done to establish it is a film opening.)

The conventions of film openings are:

·       Credits / Title Scene:

Title scenes are used in Goodfella's and Psycho which show the film title, key production (e.g. director) and cast members of the film to the audience.

Goodfella's opening which show a title scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tek8QmKRODw Here is a link to the intro of Psycho 1960 that also has a good example of a title scene.

Production Company & Distribution Company

The Production Company logo is shown in the title scene (such as Paramount, Waner Bros. Pictures and Universal) as well as the Distribution Company logo. It is usually the first thing the audience sees in the title scene before the title, key production and cast.

Transitions:

Are used to show the text (mainly in the credit / title scene). The transitions and sounds (non-diegetic sound) used for the transitions usually is linked to the type of genre of the film. So it gives the audience at the start of the film an idea of the film and it also helps set the mood and tone of the film.

The video above for Goodfella's show the transitions for the title. The sound used during the title ‘cars zooming’ is imitated by the titles as if they were the cars zooming.
The image above shows the transitions in the film opening of the film Psycho.

·   Key Locations are established

   Location / establishing shots and extreme long shots are used as well as panning to establish key locations that may be important in the film and gives the audience an idea of the place were the film is meant to be set.

In Psycho an establishing shot was done

Some aspect of narrative is set up

·   Some aspect of narrative is set up so the audience has an idea what is going on and who characters are. 

This is usually a voice over that is monologue.

This is shown well at the start of Trainspotting.

 Usually introduces the key characters

 Key Characters are introduced so the audience knows the names and who to look out for in the film. The characters names can be shown / told by narrative, text, freeze frames and many more.

·Hooks audience into film

Dramatic / Fast Music (or music that fits the genre of the film) hooks the audience into film at the opening so the film has the audiences attention at the start of the film. The fast violins in Psycho built up tension and suspense so it hooking in the audience and had there attention. This can be seen in the video link above for Psycho.

·        Mood & Tone of film is established

Music and pace (speed of edits) is used to help set up the mood and tone of the film. It makes audience think about the genre of the film like how scary it is or when is it going to make then jump.