1. Opening Analysis
My three films are ʻThe Women in Blackʼ, ʻScreamʼ and
ʻParanormal Activityʼ. All 3 of these films start with a happy
opening.
ʻThe Women in Blackʼ opens with 3 young girls playing with
their dolls and having a pretend tea party. We see a wide shot
of the girls bedroom and the three of them sat in a circle
laughing and having fun.
The sound is just slow, quite and peaceful music. However the
volume increases and the tempo speeds up as we start to
hear a deeper sound of a piano. The girls then to begin to
move over towards the window and as they walk they tread on
the china teapots and we hear them smashing under their feet.
We then see another wide shot of all three girls standing in
front of three windows, one window each girl. In
synchronization they all take hold of the handle and push
open the window. After we then see the girls jump. 4 seconds
after they jump we still hear the faint piano in the background
then hear from what we know the mother scream and then
scream ʻMy babiesʼ.
The camera then zooms out and we see a wide and long shot
of their bedroom with all the china dolls on the floor smashed.
As the camera zooms out to the very end we see the side of a
womenʼs face but we only see the silhouette.
The scene is set really well because it looks like a traditional
childrenʼs room with toys all over the floor, chester draws in the corner of the room and all
the different props that were used. Such as the china dolls, these created a good effect
because of the way the girls stood on them helped replicate ʻdeathʼ.
ʻScreamʼ In the opening of Scream we see a close up of a
telephone and we hear it ring. After we see a young girl,
maybe in her teens pick up the phone and say ʻhelloʼ. The
only noise we hear is a conversation between the young girl
and the man on the other end of the phone. We then see a
wide shot of the girl putting the phone down and turning to
walk the other way.
As she begins to walk away we hear the phone ring again.
Once again we get a close up of the phone and her hand
reaching for it, we hear the same voice as before hand. The
young girl is smiling the whole time she is on the phone so

2. this shows us that she isnʼt scared and is just laughing about
the phone calls.
We then see a tilt angle of a tree leading down to a house
with its lights on, then we change scene to an extreme close
up on a gas hob that has just been lit. We watch the young
girl put some popcorn on the hob and as she pulls off the lid
we hear the phone go again. She answers the phone to the
same man again and she starts to worry about why heʼs
phoning again but gets into conversation about eating
popcorn and manages to chill out again.
After we see a wide shot as she then pulls out a knife from
a kitchen block and it catches the light and shimmers
around and she plays with it. We can hear her talking
about her favorite scary movie which indicates to us it
involves knives after sheʼs played with them in the block.
The props are well used in this opening scene as we always focus on the telephone
ringing and when she is in the kitchen we watch her cook popcorn which signals she is
about to sit and eat and maybe watch something. Once sheʼs turned around from the
cooker she leans in front of a block of kitchen knives, these
suggests to us that they might be used later on in the film.
ʻParanormal Activityʼ Paranormal Activity opens with a point
of view camera which a man is videoing a new babies room
which is covered in see-through sheets. We see a crib with a
babyʼs toy in and as the camera pans around the room we see
a close up on some paint in a can and on a board.
There is no music in the opening scene only the voices of
people. We then see a close up of a womenʼs stomach who
is pregnant and the camera then tilts up onto the womenʼs
face where we see a close up on her painting the walls.

3. Then we get given a date and a location of where the film is set
and where the film is set. The film then carries on like a
documentary and the man and his wife carry on laughing and
messing around. We then hear a doorbell ring and the man ask
ʻWho is thatʼ and the women reply ʻIts my sister, sheʼs coming to
look at the nursery.
After we see the sister walking into the nursery and
complimenting on how good it looks and how excited they
must be to finally be having children. Then we see the two
sisters in a two shot of them laughing and feeling one of there
stomachs for the baby.
Finally we see them walking down into their basement
carrying some boxes the sister has brought over to store there
for a while. The basement has a very low lighting and doesnʼt
show much color throughout the scenes that they are in the
basement for.
The props use in this film is very low and the only significant
prop is the crib with the toy in. The opening does not involve any music or anything other
than voices.
Throughout all of these opening scenes of the films they all start happy and like nothing is
wrong. I believe that because only The Women in Black used music, it created the most
atmosphere and tension out of all three of them. They all had a lot of lighting in all of the
scenes which didnʼt make the opening that drawing in and could make you wonder off
watching the opening until something scary happens. The use of props in ʻThe Women in
Blackʼ and ʻScreamʼ were well used and they all are involved well with the films. Whereas
in ʻParanormal Activityʼ the props use wasnʼt that great and needed more to drag you into
the film and convince you to carry on watching it. A good thing about each and every one
of the three films they all didnʼt involve any editing and this helped bring the films to life
more and make the audience believe what they were witnessing.
From watching these 3 opening sequences iʼve learnt that i need to create a tension as
soon as the trailer starts and give my trailer a low lighting so it draws in the attention of the
audience and doesnʼt let them get bored in the first 30 seconds. Iʼll need to involve a few
props which help show small key points in the film and which will be important later on in
the film. Finally iʼll not give too much information away to the audience so it makes them
keen to keep watching and got to see the film to find out the outcome at the end.