Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Analyzing 3 drama/horror film openings

 Hello!! 

Today I will be analyzing 3 different film openings from my chosen genre, drama-horror. Hopefully this research will give me inspiration and ideas on how to make my film opening great. My group and I have sort of decided the premise of our opening which I will discuss soon.  I will admit, I don't think a lot of drama/horrors exist (most of the time its horror/mystery or horror/thriller), but that doesn't mean I can't try and create something original.


EX 1: The Shining (1980)

horror/mystery

I loved the use of very scary sounding music throughout the whole opening, even though all of the visuals are nature, and colorful and pretty. To me it gives a sense of foreshadowing. Everything in the atmosphere feels normal but something will happen soon enough. I really want to incorporate foreshadowing into my film opening. Not only by possibly leaving clues but also a bit more "disruptive" foreshadowing (when I have a clearer idea I will explain in a blog). While reading the comments of the embedded video, I came across a comment that said that the camera was "chasing the car" sort of like how the evil is reaching for the characters and I thought that was symbolic as well. What I don't like is the way the titles just fly through the screen. For my film I would like still titles.


EX 2: Scream(1996)

horror/mystery

I love the use of foley. It just brings a certain vibe. Its very down to earth. Like this girl is just living a normal life while getting ready to watch a movie. I love how it starts to create a "desperate" vibe without the use of music. I definitely want to include a lot of foley in my film opening just like they did here. I also like the fact that they put the title card at the very beginning and not later. The title card itself is really creative too, as it goes from white to red, most likely representing blood. I would love to have the title card do something similar like that and fade from white to bright red. Or have the title card be white and then the letters get splattered in red blood followed by screaming (definitely have to design title card in advance). For the purposes of my film opening I think the title card fits best towards the end.


EX 3: Whiplash(2014)

Drama


Okay bear with me I know whiplash has nothing to do with horror but i wanted to study at least one opening that was a drama to see if there are any techniques I would like to incorporate. I loveeee the coloring, its legitimately perfect. I will definitely be using lights for my film opening (and of course incorporate all of that color theory). I definitely want to use lighting and color grading to differentiate between scenes. If we incorporate "quick flashbacks" the different colors could help make it even more clear (i will explain what I'm thinking for the opening in a different post). 



NOTE: *I wasn't able to download all of the video clips with audio*

Credits: 
All of the wonderful people who worked on all 3 films
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx-1Bmx427U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn5SkCvPEYo&t=2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjLip2FZLuA



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