Task 4 - How can a film opening attract an audience?

Film Opening Attraction

There are many key aspects to how a film opening can attract an audience; this can be done by referring to a presenter and a number of successful directors from the documentary of Watching.Firstly, Thomas Sutcliffe believes that “films need to seduce their audience into long-term commitment. While there are many types of seduction, the temptation to go for an instant arousal is most irresistible.” By this, Sutcliffe means that the opening of a film must immediately capture it’s audiences’ attention and leaving them wanting more out of the film. However, according to Jean Jacques Beineix he believes there are risks of instant arousal which are:     once their intrigued, you have to satisfy their needs – it needs to be consistent, this makes it harder because the audience will have high expectations from the opening but may be later let down.

Thomas Sutcliffe

Secondly, it’s stated that “a good beginning must make the audience feel that it doesn't know nearly enough yet, and at the same time make sure that it doesn’t know too little.” In my opinion, I agree with this because it gives the audience a hint of what the storyline is about – creating suspense and interest. However, if it gives away too much they wont be able to stay intrigued as they can guess what happens next. Moreover, critic Stanley Kauffmann describes a ‘Classic Opening’ to be recorded through the city, up to the building, into the window, in the room, through the door and finally into the room where we meet our main character. It overall shows the film in an in-intrusive way.Another way we see an attractive film opening is of Kyle Cooper’s title sequence to the film Seven. This can be seen as effective because during his title sequence the words and letters fade in and out, the credits that were lowercase intrigued the audience as it’s not the typical way. Also, the close-ups make it mysterious and captivates the audience. The music is also dramatic, yet creepy which I believe is successful as it creates a jumpy feeling for the audience.

Furthermore, referring to  Orson Welles opening to the film A Touch of Evil we can tell that he wanted to create an effect of suspense and curiosity. Sounds like explosions had a massive effect because it was unexpected. He made out as if people were having a casual day, then out of nowhere a car explosion occurred; leaving the audience thrilled. However, Universal Studios played a huge role in ruining this for Orson Welles as they put the credits over the title sequence. Additionally, some opening tend to attract an audience with the of a “a favourite trick of Film Noir.” This is when the film begins with the ending, ad the rest of film is a build up of how it got to the ending that was shown. This can be effective because it creates suspense, however could be seen as difficult because the audience already knew what happens at the end.Finally, the film The Shining highly creates suspense for many reasons; one being that the camera angles that were used make us feel like predators, which may indicates mystery or murder Also, the music was quiet and seemed almost like a lullaby – fooling the audience.