Analysing a film opening sequence.

Presenting an analysis of a film opening

Having watched the opening to Edward Scissorhands, with its analysis on, you are to choose from one of the other films - this can be any genre, there are a wide range in the student shared area.

You are to analyse the opening of the film in detail.

 

 Commenting on:

•  use of colour,
• images,
• sounds (digetic and non-digetic,
• text,
• style (flashback/voice over/establishing shots etc)
• Conventions of film openings used,
• Information gien in the credits,
• Institutional information
• How meaning is conveyed with the different camera angles/shots types,
• how the film narrative, target audience and genre are established in the first 5 minutes.

You will need to analyse AT LEAST 4 film openings in detail, remebering to use various methods to do so.

 

Methods you could use:

- Notes/captions added to the film using movie maker (or other editing package) - Edward Scissorhands example below.

- Spoken analysis of the opening using the actual opening to illustrate your points - must be filmed and uploaded to your blog.

- Screen shots/prints with detailed comments for each one

 

Edward Scissorhands example from class:

 

 

As you can see there are numerous comments analysing how the narrative is established, the conventions of film openings and how genre is emphasised too.

Film Openings introduction

Following on from lessons from this week.

The conventions of film opening credits:

Places to find film openings for analysis:

• School stuent shared area
• DVDs
• You Tube
• http://www.artofthetitle.com/titles/
• http://www.watchthetitles.com

Your task for homework:

 What are the key conventions of film openings?

• Write a short piece for your blog (you could copy up the table (copy of table below) from class)
• Make sure you give examples/illustrations to support your points.
• Watch a further 4 more openings and add your initial observation notes to the table/blog
• FOR TUESDAY!

Hot Fuzz showing the various shot types.

As Promised, an example of the various shots required for the Preliminary Task - using Hot Fuzz.

Hope this helps :)

Starter research task

1.List genres of films

2.What are the conventions of the horror/thriller genre?

3.What is ‘suspense’?

4.write a definition (with image example) for each of the 3 shot types - match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule

Welcome to AS Media coursework blog

Welcome to the AS Media studies coursework hub blog from Knights Templar School for 2012-13 cohort.

This blog should be all students firat port of call as homework, coursework and examples/info will be posted here to guide you through your projects.

Your task (taken from the exam specification)

•Video

•Preliminary exercise:

•Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

 

•Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

 

•All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source. Both preliminary and main tasks may be done individually or as a group. Maximum four members to a group