What is an opening sequence?

PART SIX

What Is An Opening Sequence?     

The purpose of an opening sequence is for it to establish mood, important characters and visual aspect of a film. It is also used to introduce the viewer to all or some of the following elements, which are; Characters, locations, Narrative, Plot, Themes and Visual style.

The opening sequence is a personal thing but when a film grabs your attention from the opening frame it knocks you out of your seat or even grinds you into it, you tend to remember it fondly, even if the rest of it fails to measure up. It has to be said that this is something modern American movies tend to do very well; in general, most blockbuster Hollywood films result in a loud and witless bang. By watching the opening scene, the TV audience has a taste of things to come for the short attention span generation, reassurance that the upcoming ten minutes of talk and character introduction will eventually be replaced by more of the visual shouting of the first scene. 

Se7en opening scene analysis

PART FIVE

Se7en opening sequence

• The music creates suspense
• The sound effects set the mood for the film
• The audience want to know more
• Not much is given away
• The camera shots are handheld
• The Camera angle is not completely straight
• The lighting is dark
• The camera is slightly out of focus
• The Most of the shots are extreme close ups

All of these above acknowledgements Connote something. The fact that the camera is handheld, close up and out of focus makes the audience feel disorientation and gives an unusual, suspicious and eery effect. This helps to create the mood.

Filming a sequence in studio

PART FOUR

Yesterday, Wednesday 24th September, We went back into the TV studio to film a sequence with the Sony NX5 cameras.

I filmed a short clip of two girls hugging.

The first shot was a long shot them walking towards each other, (along a line which we had stuck down on the floor), and meeting at a marked point where they hugged, turned, and walked back.

The second shot was a close up on one of the girls face. It was a panning shot as she met the other girl at the marked spot then walked back.