Examples of My Chosen Genre

Horror comedies have been going since the year 1920, with the film “Haunted Spooks”. Over the last 90 years there have been many famous horror comedies that have in fact become classics, these include; “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”(bottom right), “Ghostbusters”(top left), “Arachnophobia” and the “Scary Movie”(top right) series. Some of the more recent films from this genre are “Shaun of the Dead”(bottom left), “Dead Snow” and “Zombieland”.

These pictures are classic examples of horror comedy, the scary movie picture paticularly as is it is taken from a scene where she is going to a run-down house in a secluded location and as she nervously reaches the door the shown door-knocker adds comedy to the scene so the genre is easily recognisable.

Research in to Effective Film Openings: Dead Snow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIA39IYhM6I



The opening of dead snow is an establishing shot of the mountains at night; this sets the scene for the opening. There is light hearted contrapuntal music being played over the top; this gives the opening a comedic approach. The song is called Hall of the Mountain King by Edward Grieg. There are cuts to show the forest is deserted and dark; this gives the sense of horror and loneliness. There is a cut to a person running through the forest from the unknown; this gives the audience a feel of excitement and fear for the person. Two dark figures then run past the camera to give the effect of them chasing after the person. This creates tension and keeps the audience guessing who is chasing the person. The non-digetic music begins to get louder at this point to create tension throughout the chase scene. There are also fast paced cuts to create tension and excitement within the scene. The music is then drawn to a halt when the person stops to look behind them to see if they have got away from the people who are chasing them. The silence and the puffing of her breathe is created to show how frightened the person is and how alone they are. There is a slow tracking zoom of the persons face to show there worried expression and that they are out of breathe as they have been running. It then cuts to a point of view shot of the person looking through the dark forest to see if the people are still chasing them. This creates tension as the silence and the zoom of the camera makes a jumpy part of the film destined to happen. A zombie then jumps out on the person with a loud roar which may scare some viewers and make them jump. The person then starts running away again and the chase scene continues. The contrapuntal non- digetic music starts again even louder. The music then creates tension as it is louder so it makes the scene more thrilling. It then cuts to a hand held shot of who is chasing the person from behind; this scares viewers as they can see about 4 figures chasing the person getting closer towards them. The editing gets faster to show panic and horror within the scenes.

Research in to Effective Film Openings: Casino Royale

Casino Royal
Micro and macro is a major part of an effective film opening as it is needed in order to add tension in the horror genre. It is also used in comedy film openings in order to add a comic effect to introduce the audience to the characters and make it clear who the main character is from the start. Micro and macro is vital i all genres as it adds to the hook that is needed in an effective film opening in order to keep the audience watching the film in suspense to see what has happened after the hook and why.

Micro:
Opens with a long shot of a building, camera angle is a Dutch angle
Opening credits and advertising of franchise are in black and white for effect
Totals at bottom of the shot tells us where it is set
It is very dimly lit to show that the character might be a bad guy in the film
There is shot reverse shot between Bond and the villain.
There is a trade mark shot where you are looking down the barrel of a gun at Bond, also the theme music makes you realise that you are watching a Bond film.
Macro:
It is very dimly lit to show that the character might be a bad guy in the film
There is match on action; there is a close up of his face when he sees his safe is open
When James Bond appears in the shadows to give the impression of him hiding in the room, not meant to be there
There is a flash back to a hand held camera to have the audience in the middle of the action.

Effective Film Openings

An effective film opening will give enough information about what is to follow in the film and to set the scene for the rest of the film, introduce a some or all of the main characters to be in this film, it should also have some kind of event that will make the audience want to carry on watching the rest of the film.
There are many different kind of openings to films, there are ones which show the last scene and the main part of the film are all flashbacks leading up to the first scene, an example of this kind of opening is in "Welcome To Collinwood" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OStkwRaGsU. The majority of films, however start with a calm, normal equilibrium which will get disrupted later on in the film. Also, another way of starting a film which can be very effective is to go straight into the action with a disturbed equilibrium but the film is still in sequence and an example of this opening sequence is in the film "Saw" (a still from the opening sequence can be seen below). All of these openings are very effective in different ways.