Film Openings – Convention and Examples

By Jack Suddaby

Animated?

Here is an animated film opening of Grease, shows the convention of it being a musical film, from the use of song and ‘fun’ animated sequence

Sequence before Credits?

This is when you see a part of the story line, usually hinting the story line, or to keep you watching, as it grabs your attention much more, than words on a screen. It is usually action pact, and commonly used in action films, to reflect the rest of the film. It can also be to built up the relationship with the character, or to establish the concept of the main characters.

Credits during opening scene?

This is an example of the credits during a film opening, so you can view who is in it, as well as watching something, rather than just it being black, which has become much more frequent from the later films . Often the footage behind the opening text is completely part of the narrative, and is just the opening scene, although there are cases when a whole new scene is made, just for the credits at the start, for example ‘Taxi Driver’s opening scene is there just to play the credits over the top.

What’s in them?

• In the opening credits, you expect to see:

• The Production Companies,

• The Director, • The starring actors

This is all to show the stars and, again to keep you watching, as the star quality could reflect on the film, making it a good film.

Credits before Scene?This is the more classic way of showing

the credits, simply by pasting them on the screen over a black background, with some non diagetic music, which often has connotations with the genre of film, to create an immediate connection, also the typography is usually connected to the genre of film, for example ‘The Godfather’ has old fashioned looking font, to go with the mafia theme, as it is set in the past.