Movie Opener Brainstorming & Research

Rise

The first opener focuses on the protagonist, a soccer player, who arrives on set, changes, and begins to practice shooting and dribbling on his own. Meanwhile, hip hop hype music plays in the background as we observe the player in his element. It provides the audience a view into what this movie would really be about, a typical sports movie. Additionally, the editors used clips of higher action to match the beat that the music plays at in order to add to that hype factor. Last few things to mention about this are the camera angles, which are focused on capturing the soccer player’s full body, as well as ones with mid close shots. I want to fully utilize this camera work, as well as the matching of the beats to the action, in my opening.

Movie opener 2

(Broken)

Dear Lover

Moving along, Dear Lover introduces a tranquil mood created with soothing music and beautiful photography of a lake and vegetation around it. The character introduces herself and her circumstances through a monologue, establishing that this is a romance movie rather quickly. Certain shots capture her outside looking at the river to create melancholy in the film, as well as providing flashbacks to her being happy, which builds juxtaposition in the movie. This type of sequence with the character appearing depressed over a situation, looking over the setting with flashbacks being provided about that circumstance would be a great option for our movie.

Dare to Thrill

There is a lot to digest in this clip, mostly the upbeat pop music that plays during the video. The scene’s theme revolves around the happiness of the teen cast, who are excited over getting to their car and driving somewhere. We observe their journey from the bottom of the parking garage to their car, while they run with happy faces on camera. The emotions are further boosted when they actually begin to drive, with fast paced switching of camera angles and the music growing increasingly louder. The team captured the high energy of this scene very well, to which I would want to utilize those fast paced camera angle switches to include in the football game part of our opening sequence.

Always Watching

Always Watching portrays itself as a horror movie, including mostly close ups and mid shots of characters, really showing the blank and terrifying emotions they have. Additionally, the monologue of what appears to be the one doing the scaring shows his motivations, particularly jealousy towards another character that causes him to go kidnap him. The music is rather eerie and uncomforting, playing loudly and suddenly in your ear during some parts of the video, as well as the saturation of the video clip adding to that factor. All in all, the movie opener did spectacularly, but I would not take any elements of this clip to put on my own.

The Blue Boar

A coming of age story musical featuring a young girl from perhaps the 1700s, using vibrant color grading and light-hearted music to portray the positive and Disneyesque vibes of the movie. The movie focuses on the beauty of close ups of the protagonist to portray beauty and the motivations of the character, typical of what you would experience from a Disney movie. The video was done well and would be in the top 3 of the ones I have watched so far, but I cannot take any details from this opener to use in mine.

White Coat

A rather intense opener to an intense movie, White Coat features a thrilling soundtrack to display the type of film it is. The drama builds up as we observe a character performing chemistry with the music continuing on in the background. A major detail I have to take from this film would be the lighting of it all, a dark atmosphere with little light entering the area, and when it is needed it’s used to emphasize the smoke coming from the beakers. All of the camera angles are done incredibly well compared to the other clips, capturing that intensity that you would want from a movie like this. 

Stalker

The first 40 seconds of the opening is slow and steady, not really having a type of theme it is trying to convey. No words are spoken, nor any music is played, which could be seen as creepy. Suddenly, we hear the sound of a camera taking a photo, which we can infer is taking a picture of the protagonist. The scene transitions into the title, Stalker, which now we can realize that this movie is a horror thriller. The movie bases itself on Spielberg's direction, no sound being played, just listening to the sudden noise of the music with the sound of a heartbeat being paired along. Surprisingly, I do believe I would want to use this silence and heartbeat in my opening to capture the intensity of the game of football.

Nostalgia

The last opening features the protagonist as an old lady, which the opening attempts to convey this movie would be about herself and her past, providing us with paintings of some Latin country with beautiful landscapes. Additionally, we see her younger self at the end of the clip, to further reinforce the idea that we would be observing her life. The sequence exasperates the calmness of the environment, featuring bright, sunny weather and colorful flowers. A small detail that I want to include in my opener is the zooming out of an item to signify its importance in the film, which is portrayed by the picture frame in this clip.

Brainstorming

              Our goal for this project is to increase the quality of work that my partner, Davin, and I have been able to produce with our sound project. Feedback on our video inspired us to work harder this time, to knock the socks off our fellow peers. As a result, we would need to utilize both our photography skills, editing, and directing all in one in order to pull off this great feat. Before that, ideas of a plot for our opening scene would need to be created.

                We began with integrating a type of genre that our scene would be presented as. There are various we considered, such as a drama, musical, horror, and comedy, which we choose the latter. Comedy would be a great point to start, mostly because Davin and I are not the best of actors, although our directing skill may very well be on par with Steven Spielberg. Comedy stands above the rest, because of how the genre can be approached, be it a satire or simple jokes. Compared to a horror movie, we would not have to bring out our serious side as much, which we rather leave to others.

                Next, we began to think about what this plot should be about, centering around what type of movie we are opening on. The good news was that Davin and I were pretty much on the same page on what the movie would revolve around, football. It is no secret that Davin is a massive football fan, which I believed would allow him to feel much interest on this project, and his interest is mine as well. A football comedy based on a player who continues to fail horribly during his games would suffice for our project, but how big should we go?

                There are many options and budgeting that would have to go into our opening scene, but that counts on what type of scenario would play out in the film. We initially decide on a full scale football game, where we include extras to play as two opposing football teams, as well as include some cheerleaders. The downside to such a feat would expose the weak-spot in this plan, which is timing on when we can gather such a cast together at a nearby football field on a random Saturday. Additionally, the thought of having to pay for everybody's uniforms proved expensive and too great for a short film like this. Thus, we have to put that idea at the back of our heads. 

                Currently, our objective is to simplify that plan we thought of, but the positive side of things is that we have a large cast of characters ready to perform when we need them, but the timing window would still be an issue. If all else fails, the solution would be to film at school or at our own houses, but that is merely a last resort.

Why I worked with Davin (GOAT)

                    Davin Williams (GOAT) is someone I appreciate most when it comes to making videos in this class. As you may know, I have worked with him on our award wining and Oscar worthy, previous assignment to which we made a short film using only natural sound effects. I admire his artwork and work ethic when it comes to AICE Media Studies, thus, he and I will be partnering up for this project.

  

                                                      (Davin Williams (aka The Davinator))

         Davin Williams is a talented student who can carry out his assignments on time and with quality that will certainly blow your mind. His fascination with both movies and football are something that keeps me intrigued whenever we converse during our AICE Media-Studies class, which does improve how well we do on our work. He is truly an inspiration to me, as someone who I can look up to both figuratively and literally (he is 6 feet tall). When it came to our sound project, we were able to work with such cooperation that I never could have fathomed what it would have been like with another partner. With both of our editing and improvisation skills, we managed to produce a project worthy of an Oscar, which has influenced our decision making on other projects, to maintain the level of quality. All in all, Davin is a fantastic partner to work with and I am honored to be by his side on this following project.