Genre

Genre Conventions

After looking at a variety of film openings I have seen many of the key genres and conventions of those genres in film openings. This should give me a good understanding and help with ideas for what will need to be in our own opening to make it appeal to the audience for the genre we pick.

Horror - Scream

Scream establishes its genre with the dark isolated setting with a stereotypical blonde female at home alone at night. There is little non-diegetic or diegetic sound so that the minimal ambient noises can establish suspense. Every noise is emphasised and made to be sudden to offset or unsettle the audience.

The phone call voice is made to sound gruff and eerie and close ups are used on items such as the knife and oven as a convention of horror and establishes a threat before anything even happens. There is also an obvious give away of the genre with the title 'Scream' in red text and blood.

 

Horror films will always feature many convention of their genre in the opening. Other examples of common or stereotypical themes may be dark woods, blood or frightening creatures, ghosts or killers.

Action - Casino Royale

 

Themes relating to the action genre such as guns and fights are shown in abundance in the animated opening titles of this bond film. There are also common themes of targets, blood and explosions of gun going off and a lot of the action is emphasised.

 

 

Much of the opening hints towards the main character getting into a lot of action during the film fighting multiple characters. A fast pace is given to the film from the very beginning to go along with the action genre.

 

There is dramatic music over the top of the opening titles fitting to the action sequences.

 

Most action films will include a lot of key icons to their genre in the openings. They need to start as the film intends to go on with an abundance of explosions, guns, cars and such depending on the style of the film.

Thriller - The Silence of the Lambs

Thrillers can take a variety of conventions to use in their openings depending on the subjects of the film. Silence of the Lambs establishes a random woodland setting/police training ground. It doesn’t give away much until later on to make the audience question what is happening or what might happen next. This theme should continue throughout the entire film.

 

The theme of police or detective investigations is suggested with the newspaper articles and photos. This also establishes the thriller genre, with elements of crime drama and neo noir, as the audience are being shown controversial topics to think about from the start but not very much information about the story of the film.

 

Thrillers are made to make people think and question what they are watching. The openings of thrillers will include some key elements or themes to the film as they can cover a wide variety of topics, they need to establish the subject.

Romance

Will always show many elements of love in the opening, with common themes of weddings, dates, hearts, red, pink and more. One or both of the main characters may be established and will often focus on one of the main characters lives’ and give the audience a vision into their world or worlds to allow for that to change when they meet their love.

Comedy - The Pink Panther

The Pink Panther uses animations for a more random and amusing opening. A sequence of random slapstick style chases ensue between the established animated version of the main character and the pink panther which is represented as a real pink panther rather than the jewel as in the actual narrative.

 

The opening animation is very colourful and vibrant to reflect the light heartedness of the film. The animations themselves are similar to that of cartoons to again establish a comedic genre.