What is the purpose of a film opening?

1. What Thomas Sutcliffle means is that a film opening must be promising enough so that it leads the audience on to want to watch more of the film and to watch it to the end rather than the film opening being dull and the audience not wanting to watch the film till the end.

2. Some risks of instant arousal mentioned by Jean Jacques Beineix is that the audience could be expecting a bit too much within the first 20 minutes such as cars, motion and  immediate gratification. Jean believes the audience should wait and then the satisfaction will come. If you arouse them early, then you have to answer their questions.

3. A good beginning must make the audience feel that they don't know enough yet so they feel eager enough to watch it through to the end but also at the same time make sure that the audience doesn't know too little because there won't be anything there to motivate them to watch it to the end.

4. The classic opening described by Stanley Kauffmann is the film began with an establishing shot, then there was a close up of a building, then the camera went up the building to the window then in the window going past the receptionist's desk to the private office and they're sat there. From this classic opening you're told the main setting, what the occupation of the hero is and the organization of the world.

5. Kyle Cooper's title sequence to the film Seven is so effective because title sequence wakes the audience up and gets them ready for what is about to happen. The title sequence was the first scene of the movie. It introduced the audience to what was necessary being the story, the nature of the films main character and shown a lot of the things that was due to happen throughout the film.

6. What Orson Welles wanted to achieve with his opening of the film A Touch of Evil was he wanted it not to involve any credits as well as title music. This was because he wanted to plunge the audience straight into the first scene of the film. There was an argument over the decision to have no music. This was because they wanted to have their music at the beginning of the title sequence.

7. What is meant by "a favourite trick of Film Noir" is when the beginning of the film is quite like what we would expect the ending of the film to be like making  it a trick for the audience.















- the begining of the film, opens itself up for# viewers
- allows you to know when the film is starting
- equal to a trailer and is a decision for viewers for if they are going to watch the film or not