Analyses of AS film openings

1. Student Film Opening Analysis
Carnage
This opening got an 80 out 100 marks, making it an A grade and was produced in
2013.
The camera operation was very good apart from when a shot of a stream was filmed
handheld when it was clearly meant to be a still, but because it was shaking you could
tell that it was being held. However, there was a lot of shot variation to set the scene
and build tension. And the rest of the camera operation worked very well to build
suspense.
The editing was very good as well. They had added a filter to it to fit the genre and it
worked very well. Also, the match on action was very smooth; for example, when the
gun shot was heard it cut straight to the title without any excess footage shown. Also,
the titles fit the genre every well because it is a horror and the used an appropriate
font and colour. The non-diegetic sound added during post production worked very
well to build suspense and the gun shot sounded very realistic. The only problem in
post-production is that they made it look like a trailer rather than a film opening, but if
they had taken out two of the title cards then it would have been fine.
The mise-en-scene was accurate. The girl wore clothes that fitted a ‘normal person’
stereotype making it effective because it makes the audience feel as if it could have
been them in that situation. The costume of the murderer also seemed to fit the same
stereotype; the audience would also feel tension from this because a murderer could
be anyone you see. The lighting for this film opening was natural but slightly altered
post production to look more low-key because darkness connotes danger. You don’t
see the actors’ faces very well or at all but the way the move presents the danger and
tension well. There is no makeup because the film opening doesn’t show anything that
would need it. The only prop in the film is the gun the murderer uses and it looks
realistic, so the props used work well with the mise-en-scene. The setting works very
well with the mise-en-scene because it looks very inaccessible making it the perfect
place for the murderer; and nothing gets in the shot to distract the audience or affect
the opening.
Counterpart
This opening didn’t have a grade or mark but it was produced in 2011.
The camera operation wasn’t very good. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be set in
a school or not, but even if it was they could have framed out a lot of the logos and
signs around school because they were distracting. The POV shots were very wonky
and did not piece with the other shots very well because of this, making it all look quite

2. sloppy. I also felt as if the shot at the top of the staircase at the beginning didn’t make
much sense, because the actor stood there for too long and just as he began to move
it cut to another shot. There also wasn’t much shot variation, it seemed to be just the
basic shots that were needed.
The editing picked it up a little. I like how the masked characters had a sort of
shadowing around them it made the audience know that they weren’t human. I also
thought the music fitted very well with the opening because it built suspense. I also
thought that the title worked well with the opening because it built upon the enigma
that was already there.
I think the mise-en-scene was good in some aspects, but let the opening down in
others. The costume was good for the main actor because he was supposed to be a
normal person, but the costume for the other actors made them look too normal even
though they were wearing the masks. The lighting was good because you could see
everything clearly and it gave the sense that this was a normal day for the main actor
at the beginning. The acting let it down a little because the main actor didn’t seem
fazed at all when he was being dragged off yet looked too stiff to be unconscious which
let it down a bit because the acting had been good up until that point, because the
masked characters walked similarly. No makeup was needed because nothing graphic
happened and it was a normal day for the main character. The only prop used was his
glasses because they were dropped at the end as evidence that he was gone, which
I thought worked well. The setting was a school but I was unsure as to whether they
wanted people to know it was a school it was an average building, because it looked
deserted, but they didn’t frame out logos or signs.