PRELIMINARY EXERCISE : Practise title sequence

my film opening

In order for my group to practice a film opening we researched two films; these were  Delicatessen (1991) and To Kill A Mockingbird (1962). I learned that an opening sequence can tell a story and directors can use still life style camerawork to help deliver information to the audience before the main story begins. It can set the scene and the theme for the film. The point of view shots used in Delicatessen were cleverly designed to made you feel like you were actually the victim increasing tension and dramatic impact on the audience from the moment it starts.

We decided as a group to follow the same theme which was the tabletop theme.  We used a camera panning over different parts of the table top to reveal the items to show a story through the live action and the order we showed them.

We set up a table and we included the following items to tell our story:

A briefcase, a snake, some money, a gun and an alcoholic drink

We chose the film opening music Nostalgia by Emily Barker (2015).We tried to use the music in sync with the movements.

Our story was about an assassination and the opening sequence was focussed around his briefcase and the items he would use which had a picture of the victim and a big red circle around the face to draw attention to the victim, and to make the audience feel that that the man in the picture was going to be killed.

We used movement and live action. We opened the briefcase to show the items inside so they could see the gun and money. We moved the snake to give a sense of realism and to make the audience feel like the snake symbolised the devil and the devil tempts people to do bad things.The gun was taken out and it was loaded and the briefcase was shut as the camera panned away.

The live action helps the audience engage and hook them into the story.

At the end we tried to do a live action sequence which was the actual assassination attempt.We also tried to make the credits reveal through the dynamic aspect for the opening sequence. For example, when the briefcase opened it revealed the name and when the case was closed the name disappeared but this was far too difficult and imovie doesn't have the editing capability so we decided not to do this.