Analysis of Film Opening.

 

American Beauty

 

 

 

A character based opening with narration is the 1999 Best Picture American Beauty. The entire opening is narrated by the character himself after his death. We know this as he says 'by the end of this year I will be dead'. This shows an element of foreshadowing. This leaves the audience solely in the hands of the narrator, realising that he knows what is going to happen at the end, showing him as an omniscient force, and as if he's looking down on us. With this in mind, the narrator is able to lead the audience through his day and the audience believes him. The impact this has is again one of intrigue and mystery. The narrator claims he will die within a year, yet his life seems so absurdly ordinary that his imminent death seems out of place. The audience are presented with where the character is at the beginning, and where he is at the end, but not the middle, and this is the main ploy to drag the audience in: they want to know what the middle is, and they want to know how so much changed so quickly.

In 'American Beauty' the narrator tells the audience their opinion, this 'forces' the audience to see the characters and the goings on in a certain light instead of allowing them to have their own opinion. 'American Beauty' is a fictional drama, this approach is taken in order to invite the audience into the films setting. It establishes the characters and the community very quickly. The voice in American Beauty talks from personal experience making the audience able to relate to his character and sympathise with him.

The film has a very strong opening, which establishes characters and setting through a narrator, it makes good use of mystery and intrigue. The audience hooks onto this mystery and it is what pulls them in, causing the strong opening.

Analysis of Film Opening.

Hitch

Hitch is a 2005 romantic-comedy starring Will Smith. He plays a 'love therapist', a man who teaches other men how to 'sweep women off of their feet'. The opening scene introduces the audience to Will Smiths character, Alex, and gives them an idea as to what he does and the methods he uses. Throughout this scene, Alex is made to sound extremely experienced in the area of women, as his narration details his knowledge about relationships, showing his expertise. he begins by narrating over a brief montage of different men admiring specific women from a distance which is then usually followed by a  dismissive response from the chosen woman.  This is a convention of romance films, where one romantic lead doesnt show an interest in the other. In every different situation shown it is always the man admiring the woman rather than vice versa, making women seem more powerful than men. 

The location is shown to be in America in a city environment, likely New York. This is shown through the classic yellow taxi cab identified with New York in many classic films. New York is a popular setting for many romance films, as it has a mass market appeal as many people across the world can identify with New York. We then see the lockers in an apartment block. A woman we have followed through parts of the montage leaves the foreground of the shot, as she does this Alex enters the foreground in close-up, also becoming the focus pull of the shot. This shot is the first time we see Alex and during this scene he is the only person in the shot - other than briefly referring back to the men and women we saw before. By doing this, it shows his domincance and ability to entice and attract people towards him. The narration continues, although it is now delivered directly to the audience in a soliloquy from Alex, breaking the fourth wall.

Alex's costume is a suit, showing he is a professional in his line of work. The lack of tie and undone top button on his shirt also suggests a laid back attitude. In other words, the audience is supposed to look at Alex as a cool character. He is also shown as very mysterious in the clip because he only interracts with his 'clients' and speaks directly to the audience, other than this he doesnt speak to anyone making the audience think he doesnt have close friends or family. We know of his importance because he gets the prevalence of the shots as soon as he is introduced, and is mainly shown in close-up. The audience also sees his intelligence and methods in the introduction. Alex uses a dog to lure another dog to him, that belongs to the woman shown in the montage. He then hands the dog to a man outside her apartment block, who then lays in front of a cab with her dog in his hands, so the woman believes he dived in front of it to save her dog.

We see 2 quick shots of Alex shaking hands with the other 2 men shown in the montage, which suggests he is popular and successful in what he does. The next shot is a long shot of the man handing the dog back to the woman, which then pans downwards and puts the foreground in focus to show Alex talking again to the camera. He talks about the "basic principles" and tells the audience how any man can get any woman, which provides the hope and inspiration many of the target market look for in a romance film. The opening scene ends with an establishing shot of the famous New York skyline, confirming the setting of the film.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

For our Preliminary Task we chose to film in the school library because it meant we would be able to film what we wanted without being interrupted and also meant the actors would be able to be heard as it is a quite area. We were told to film an actor entering a room, sit down and exchange a few lines of dialect with someone else, so this area allowed us to do just that.

We began by using a medium shot which zooms out in order to show a clearer view of the current location - whilst panning in the direction he is walking, This shows the audience he is walking towards a particular location - into a long shot which shows an actor walking towards the door he is about to enter. The shot then reverts back to a medium shot as the actor opens the door. At this point we could have used a 'Match on action' shot. We would have needed to use either a close up or extreme close up to show the hand on the door. This is one thing that we decided we would add in if given the opportunity to remake it because match on action is a good way of creating a visual bridge, which distracts the viewer from noticing any slight continuity error between the two shots.

Another shot we used was an over the shoulder, we used this during the brief conversation between the two characters to give the viewers the impression that they were there during the clip. This shot also helps the viewer see that a conversation is taking place.

The speeds of the cuts are relatively fast, this is normally used to speed up the pace of a scene however, it wasn't necessary in this example.

Overall i don't think this task went very well as it involved basic editing, camera shots and angles and there was not much dialogue. Hopefully in our opening two minutes of our real film, we will show a higher range of skills.

Preliminary task.