Pete Fraser

Key features
- Genre
- Narrative (enigma)
- Character
- Atmosphere
-  Settings

In today's talk we focused on looking at film openings in preparations for when we create our own film opening. We looked at professional films first where we analysed the key features.
One of the film openings was 'Catch me if you can'

The opening scene consisted of a series of different cartoons which represented different jobs while a chase was going on between a man who seemed to look like a investigator and a man in whom kept changing appearances to get away. These credits clearly indicate the main characters without them even being in there. This is done when their names have appeared first and in big writing. For example Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio are the main characters of this film.

We then went on and analysed what genre we thought it was and why we thought it. I suggested it could be a drama or an action film. I said drama as all the characters look very sophisticated and acting all normal, however as the man is constantly running away from the other man it makes me wonder that it might actually be an action film.

The mystery of why it was only showing cartoons really draws you in as you wonder why it is not showing the actual people and just cartoons acting out these people. As the cartoons are expressionless it makes you wonder what kind of mood this film is, is the man running away bad or the one chasing him?

The music was also quite tense and mysterious making this look like a mystery film where the man is trying to solve all these problems just to find another man behind it all. They use this music so that you can feel the way they want you to feel about this opening. They want you to wonder, be curious and want to know more, leaving a lot of suspense.

The film opening showed a lot of enigma through how it left many unanswered questions, one being 'Why did the male character carry so much jobs?' and 'Why was that man following him?' because of these questions and mysterious it makes the audience want to know more.

The jobs consisted of:
- Pilot
- Air stewardess
- Bar Tender
- Doctor
- Taxi driver
- Nurse
- Secretary
- Business man
- Musician

In this opening you can identify the location that is America due to the many American actors and actresses. Also the yellow cab is also an American trade mark as yellow cabs are well known for only being in America.

Pete Fraser next got us to look at previous student film openings which they have produced for their exams. He then got us to discuss and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these clips.

The strengths consisted of:
- Good background music
- Clear genre
- Well made titles
- Some clear film shots

The weaknesses:
- Bad narrative / can't hear what the characters are saying as the wind over powers their voices
- Whole story line is portrayed in the opening scene, makes you think that it is just a short film
- Bad lighting
- Bad acting

To help is with ours he then told us the most common film openings that students tend to use:
- Saw
- Scream
- Se7en
- Lock, stock
- Waking Up
- Flashback or flash forward

Pete advised us not to use these ideas as the examiners will get bored of watching the same thing. He said that using more original ideas can give us the chance of scoring higher and better grades for our video.