Codes and Conventions in film openings

The whole point of a film opening is to grip the audience, and make them want to watch the whole film. If the film opening is bad then people will be unlikely to watch the rest of the film. Film openings should be exciting.

common codes and conventions of film openings:

Setting the scene
Introduction to characters
The genre of the film

Sometimes in film openings the characters names will be listed as they appear (if their a quite a few characters) and sometimes the actors name will also be shown.

Action - often open with voilence/shooting/fighting.
Horror - often open with a flashback or a scary setting
Sci fi - often open with spacfecraft/ or soemthing alien
Romance - often open with an introduction to characters, normally done by voice over.
Comedy - often open with a funny scene to set the standard of the film



In trainspotting there are quite a lot of characters, and the character names are dispplayed in the first 2 mins. The main character voices over and talks about "chosing life", then at the end of the 2 mins he says "but you dont need reasons when you've got heroine" and that really grips the audience. This introduction really grips you and makes you question what he says, and makes you want to watch more.

Continuity

Continuity is the consistancy of charateristics of persons, plot, objects, places and events seen by the veiwer. If there is no continuity the film wouldnt make sense. basically everything should be kept the same but often mistakes happen. from crew members appearing in the background of films, to objects magically changing places, films often have continuity errors.

180 degree rule

In film making the 180 degree rule is in place to not confuse audiences.  It is used when 2 characters are in a scene and have a left/right relationship with each other. There is an imaginary axis going across the two people, if the camera goes over the line (without showing the movment itself) it will change the left/right of the people and make it seem like they are not talking to one another, confusing the audience.



This picture shows the 180 degree rule and the imaginary line down the middle. The green area shows where the camera should stay in order to keep the 180 degree rule going.

Match on action

Match on action in flims is a different view of the exact same action. For instance a person walking up to a door and opening it, and then the match on action shot would be a close up of the door handle and the characters hand. Its used to show detail or draw attetion to certain actions in films.



this video shows match on action very well

shot/ reverse shot

Shot/ reverse shot is used when two people are having a conversation. Its when the camera changes from the over shoulder perspective of one character to another. It shows the audience that the two people are talking.

Preliminary exercise

We have to produce a continuity exercise which includesa character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down opposit another character, they then exchange a few lines of dialouge.

This piece must include.
Shot/ Reverse shot
Match on action
180 degree rule

All about me

Hey, im Curtis.

This blog has been set up for my A level media work, which I am doing at ken stimpson school. I love music, tv and film. I love rock, punk, post hardcore, deathcore and metal music.Im into loads of different types of films, especilly horror and action. I enjoy hanging out with my mates, playing football. My favourite film is scott pilgrim vs the world, its epic. My favourite band is Bring me the horizon. I love them!

My group for AS media studies is with James Lorimer and Lauren Alexander.

This year in Media Studies we have to complete a perliminary exercise where we have to continue continuity through a small scene.

The main task this year will be to produce the opening titles to a new fiction film.