Research and Planning 3: Opening Scene Research

In this post I will present to you my analysis of these opening scenes and certain conventions they have which I feel are necessary to convey a good introduction of the story in a movies opening sequence. Enjoy!!

Movie 1 'Girl fight':

In the first 41 seconds of this opening sequence we are introduced to the main protagonist.

This immediately draws attention due to the slow motion effects and the close up (CU) leaving the audience to focus on nothing but her face. The following tracking shot scene (0:45) in the Girls bathroom introduces other characters and sets the scene.

At (1:56) the director makes great use of slow motion to drag out the surprise for the audience. The timing very much matches the atmosphere created and the suspense leaves the audience wanting to watch more and see how the relationship between these characters progresses.

The fight scene at the end shows the main theme of the movie “Girl fights”, sets the scene and establishes the setting and theme

We are similarly following the concept of this movie as we hope to establish the theme of our movie through its opening by actually having our main characters in the ring and displaying their talents to let the audience know of the movies progression.

Movie 2 Rocky III

This opening starts with a distinctive melody and a legendary fight scene that will make the audience immediately immersed in the film. As there is no sort of 'introduction' the audience are straight away 'thrown into the action' that raises many questions which the audience will have to continue watching to find out.

The sound of the crowds responses to 'rocky' every time he falls increases the energy and is a great way for people who just started to watch the movie to get engaged with the film.

The director can establish the main plot for the film by ‘Rocky’ blowing kisses to a woman telling the audience of some sort of relationship or ‘love interest.’

As the fight progresses we are shown on the sides images of the newspaper articles and magazine articles with images of the main character telling the audience that he has been a successful boxer and is very famous as of then with answers the questions about why so many people are engaged in this fight.

Movie 3 Raging bull

This opening scene is very unique as is has the main character on the left side of the frame 'practising' constantly for the whole duration of the opening sequence but there is plenty of space on right side to place titles and thats exactly what the director did.

This opening sequence is practically the same throughout. You can see that the speed of the clip has been reduced tremendously which forces the audience to focus on the man character at the left practicing. We can use the concept of 'free space' to place our titles yet still draw our audiences attention to the action taking place.
Movie 4 Southpaw

The music in this sequence is one thing that I find it really key to introducing characters. At the beginning the music is very prominent and the audience may believe that is just accompanying music but then (0:42) when the main character is wrapping round his boxing gauze over his hand the music suddenly muffles and we realise that this music is being played through headphones, presumably the persons headphones that we're meant to focus on.
The minor 'shuffling' sounds make us as the audience focus on the surroundings as well at the main character. We start to ask questions like 'whats going on?' 'Why are there so many people focused on the well being of this one person?' those who may have started watching the movie without any prior knowledge of it being about boxing may ask 'What is he going to do?'.

(1:14)

The scene especially shows a group of people presumably taunting the now established main character. and the one that as stood up seems to be carrying a boxing champion belt. suggesting a rival?
(belt that most commonly looks like this.)

At (1:40) We can distinctively hear the strong sound of the gauze being wrapped while the other people talk in the background. And the camera chooses to loose/gain focus as specific moments to force our attention at certain things such as (0:44)  the man watching the preparation happen may be of some significance in the future. I feel like this is the kind of story we want to convey with our opening sequence and we want to bring attention to different aspects of our opening scene.
What I've gained from this:
Overall, I've learnt of the key elements such as music and story telling in establishing a good opening scene and I hope to learn from this is that there is much more to introducing a film than presenting the characters and 'setting the scene'.

Thank you for reading this blogpost and I hope you gained more insight into the things you may see in an opening sequence but might not be aware of.
Goodbye~