The Research

To create my film opening, I have decided to do some research into what kind of genre I would like to include. Since I had done previous research on Comedy's and Action genres for films, I have decided to research another genre (horror genre) in order to know what feel I exactly want for my audience. Aside from comedy's and action movies, I have researched the horror genre to step a little out of my comfort zone and dive into a whole different area of entertainment. Through my research, I have learned that horror films are designed to frighten and to invoke our worst fears. Horror films often provide a cathartic experience and the use of a terrifying and/or shocking beginning, in which I want to do for my own film opening to truly engage my audience. Horror films are also very flexible films in terms of story and genre which makes the process more feasible, which means I can basically pick out a random setting for my opening, any setting I want, and just have to make it somewhat suspenseful. Most traditional horror films include certain themes such as serial killer films, zombies, murder films, and traditional folk tales such as sea monsters and vampires. I wanted to step outside of those traditions and do something raw and new.

I have looked into one horror film in particular, and its film opening truly inspired me. After watching the film opening from the movie IT directed by Andy Muschietti, this showed me that I should really have my audience on their toes for my own film opening. The link below is the film opening for the movie IT.

https://youtu.be/DJWJ6RP55nU



In the video above, I could tell that Muschietti gives away little hints that the young boy is going to be in a lot of trouble, but it doesn't verbally state it so that the audience can ask questions as they are watching the opening, thats what I would like to incorporate in my own film opening. In the film opening for the movie IT, it shows that there is a helpless young boy gracefully running down the road to get his little paper boat that he made. The audience can tell that he is so nonchalant because he doesn't know what is about to happen to him by the way he smiles and runs down the street laughing and skipping. The rainy opening scene gives a bit more to the gloomy and sad state that the little boy will potentially be in. When the little boy notices that his paper boat floated down a drain, there is a close up scene of the boy trying to look down the drain, showing that there is something else that is in that drain besides the paper boat. I can tell that there is something else down the drain by how the music suddenly stops, and I can only hear the diegetic sound of the rain in the background, focusing more on that rain and the trouble it may bring forth. And yes, it does bring forth trouble when you see a creepy clown step out into the faint light from the drain, eventually grabbing the little kid and taking a chomp out of his arm.

This film provided an out of the box opening with its sounds, lighting, and close up camera angles in which I would like to include in my film opening.