Film openings typically include certain conventions: 1) The film's ident and/or title credits are usually the first things shown to identify the film and set the genre/mood through color and font choices. 2) Establishing shots are often used early on to provide context of the film's location and hint at the narrative. 3) Key characters may be introduced early to focus audience attention and signal their importance to the story.

1. Conventions of Film Openings
Charlotte Gray

2. Conventional Content
• The Films ident is pretty much always the first
thing to appear on the screen. The idents
colour and typography is often changed to
appropriately match the genre of the film.
• E.g. a horror film may have a dark coloured
font to show scariness or a red coloured font
to symbolise blood and violence which are
both stereotypical of horror.

3. Conventional Content
• A high proportion of films start off with some
type of credits whether it just be the title or
whether it be the names of the main cast
members. The film titles just like the idents
are adapted to represent the genre and mood
of the film.
• E.g. In Jurassic Park the font is a safari style
font to show the films location and narrative.

4. Conventional Content
• Establishing shots are commonly used as the
first shot to appear in a films opening. The
establishing shots allow the audience to
immediately see the films location and
interpret narrative from that.

5. Conventional Content
• The main character or an important character
in the films narrative is often one of the first
to be shown. This is so the audience focuses
on that particular character from the
beginning and their importance is
exaggerated. The audience are more likely to
remember them if they see them in the films
opening.

6. Mood
• Music is a key part in establishing the mood of
the film.
• Non diegetic music is often used to represent
the situation and give the audience an idea of
how they should feel.
• Non diegetic music often increases in volume
as something important is going to happen.

7. Mood
• In a tense scene non diegetic music can be
played to exaggerate the eeriness of the
situation or to symbolise the importance of
the thing that is about to happen.
• E.g. in a thriller film the music could increase
in volume as the character gets closer and
closer to the danger.

8. Mood
• Location is also key in signifying the mood of a
film.
• There are many stereotypes in location for
example a dark alley way or street in a city is
stereotyped to be dangerous and dodgy.
• These stereotypes allow the audience to guess
at the narrative of the film, just by seeing its
location.

9. Titles
• Each title varies in each different film.
• Titles are used to represent the films genre
and narrative.
• The titles help establish what the film is all
about and allow the audience to infer about
what they believe the film will involve judging
from the titles.

10. Titles
• Font is very important as it is necessary to
correctly represent the film in the typography.
• Font and colour can show a lot about the
narrative, and the audience subconsciously
judge both of these without realising.

11. Technical Construction
• Comparing the films budgets it is clear to see
that most of the time the company with the
higher budget uses more advanced shots and
effects in their film.
• This is because the company with a lower
budget cannot afford this.
• However having a low budget doesn’t
determine box office profits.

12. Technical Construction
• Camera shots and angles are very important in
creating the correct mood within a scene.
• Sound is also a very important technical
element adding to the scene.
• The correct use of sound can improve the shot
so much.
• E.g. Scary/tense music creates scary
atmosphere for the audience.

13. Technical Construction
• Close up shots are commonly used the
exaggerate the importance of something or to
force the audience to focus on something.
• Long shots allow the audience to see the
characters positioning and costume. Both of
these can say a lot about the character.
• Shots fading in from a plain black screen
shows their importance and like they are the
beginning of something.