Opening Analysis

My three films are ʻThe Women in Blackʼ, ʻScreamʼ and ʻParanormal Activityʼ. All 3 of these films start with a happy opening.

ʻThe Women in Blackʼ opens with 3 young girls playing with their dolls and having a pretend tea party. We see a wide shot of the girls bedroom and the three of them sat in a circle laughing and having fun.

The sound is just slow, quite and peaceful music. However the volume increases and the tempo speeds up as we start to hear a deeper sound of a piano. The girls then to begin to move over towards the window and as they walk they tread on the china teapots and we hear them smashing under their feet.

We then see another wide shot of all three girls standing in front of three windows, one window each girl. In synchronization they all take hold of the handle and push open the window. After we then see the girls jump. 4 seconds after they jump we still hear the faint piano in the background then hear from what we know the mother scream and then scream ʻMy babiesʼ.

The camera then zooms out and we see a wide and long shot of their bedroom with all the china dolls on the floor smashed. As the camera zooms out to the very end we see the side of a womenʼs face but we only see the silhouette.

The scene is set really well because it looks like a traditional childrenʼs room with toys all over the floor, chester draws in the corner of the room and all the different props that were used. Such as the china dolls, these created a good effect because of the way the girls stood on them helped replicate ʻdeathʼ.

ʻScreamʼ In the opening of Scream we see a close up of a telephone and we hear it ring. After we see a young girl, maybe in her teens pick up the phone and say ʻhelloʼ. The only noise we hear is a conversation between the young girl and the man on the other end of the phone. We then see a wide shot of the girl putting the phone down and turning to walk the other way.

As she begins to walk away we hear the phone ring again. Once again we get a close up of the phone and her hand reaching for it, we hear the same voice as before hand. The young girl is smiling the whole time she is on the phone so

this shows us that she isnʼt scared and is just laughing about the phone calls.

We then see a tilt angle of a tree leading down to a house with its lights on, then we change scene to an extreme close up on a gas hob that has just been lit. We watch the young girl put some popcorn on the hob and as she pulls off the lid we hear the phone go again. She answers the phone to the same man again and she starts to worry about why heʼs phoning again but gets into conversation about eating popcorn and manages to chill out again.

After we see a wide shot as she then pulls out a knife from a kitchen block and it catches the light and shimmers around and she plays with it. We can hear her talking about her favorite scary movie which indicates to us it involves knives after sheʼs played with them in the block.

The props are well used in this opening scene as we always focus on the telephone ringing and when she is in the kitchen we watch her cook popcorn which signals she is about to sit and eat and maybe watch something. Once sheʼs turned around from the cooker she leans in front of a block of kitchen knives, these suggests to us that they might be used later on in the film.

ʻParanormal Activityʼ Paranormal Activity opens with a point of view camera which a man is videoing a new babies room which is covered in see-through sheets. We see a crib with a babyʼs toy in and as the camera pans around the room we see a close up on some paint in a can and on a board.

There is no music in the opening scene only the voices of people. We then see a close up of a womenʼs stomach who is pregnant and the camera then tilts up onto the womenʼs face where we see a close up on her painting the walls.

Then we get given a date and a location of where the film is set and where the film is set. The film then carries on like a documentary and the man and his wife carry on laughing and messing around. We then hear a doorbell ring and the man ask ʻWho is thatʼ and the women reply ʻIts my sister, sheʼs coming to look at the nursery.

After we see the sister walking into the nursery and complimenting on how good it looks and how excited they must be to finally be having children. Then we see the two sisters in a two shot of them laughing and feeling one of there stomachs for the baby.

Finally we see them walking down into their basement carrying some boxes the sister has brought over to store there for a while. The basement has a very low lighting and doesnʼt show much color throughout the scenes that they are in the basement for.

The props use in this film is very low and the only significant prop is the crib with the toy in. The opening does not involve any music or anything other than voices.

Throughout all of these opening scenes of the films they all start happy and like nothing is wrong. I believe that because only The Women in Black used music, it created the most atmosphere and tension out of all three of them. They all had a lot of lighting in all of the scenes which didnʼt make the opening that drawing in and could make you wonder off watching the opening until something scary happens. The use of props in ʻThe Women in Blackʼ and ʻScreamʼ were well used and they all are involved well with the films. Whereas in ʻParanormal Activityʼ the props use wasnʼt that great and needed more to drag you into the film and convince you to carry on watching it. A good thing about each and every one of the three films they all didnʼt involve any editing and this helped bring the films to life more and make the audience believe what they were witnessing.

From watching these 3 opening sequences iʼve learnt that i need to create a tension as soon as the trailer starts and give my trailer a low lighting so it draws in the attention of the audience and doesnʼt let them get bored in the first 30 seconds. Iʼll need to involve a few props which help show small key points in the film and which will be important later on in the film. Finally iʼll not give too much information away to the audience so it makes them keen to keep watching and got to see the film to find out the outcome at the end.