Looking at Film Openings

Dirty  Dancing

• Starts with credits over the top of a slow motion black and white video of couples dancing in the background, gives a classic look.
• Portrays Key theme of dance being a big part of the movie.
• Audio is very slow and chilled, sets the mood, fits well with visual.
• Credits finish cut to scene.
• Family driving to a holiday destination, key shots reveal body language.
• The main characters voice is over the top of the video, setting the scene.
• Family attitudes are portray, i.e.. that the daughter and farther are relatively close.

Elf

• Opening with cheerful christmas music, expressing the movies key theme of christmas.
• Introduction starts as an almost storybook being told be a key character, 'papa elf'.
• Clips are being shown that go along with the story, filling the audience in on the background history.
• The main character 'Buddy' is introduced.
• Effectively sets one of the main scenes, north pole.
• Credits are shown on opposite sides of the storybook alongside every new piece of info.                                                                                                                                                           

Stand by me

• A peaceful tune sets the scene, showing an old american landscape. 
• Camera shoots and zooms to a car with an older man sat inside, starts talking about his childhood.
• Upbeat songs kicks in and switches to the past when he was a child.
• The story continues from this clip, the start is effective as its sets the backing story and suits the children's attitudes to life, in the terms of music used, i.e.. youth is fun and up beat.   

Grease

• The opening opens with old fashioned cartoons and illustrations showing characters and credit.
• This express the time in which the movie was filmed.
• The credits finish and cut to the two main characters playing around on the beach, they look like a couple, so this reveals the main objective of the movie.
• They talk about summer, effective as it reveals the main characters and their background, and the events that happened leading to those event.

What elements do film openings have in common?

There are a very wide range of openings, from many different directors, and for many different type of genre of film. But there are some general things that film openings have in common, that either main characters are introduced, or that the history behind the movie, .i.e events in the past which have lead to the situation that that the movie is too reveal, if a whole subject is not revealed usually an event is occurring which captures the audiences attention and makes the audience continue watching the movie, which is particularly effective.

Main Purpose?

The main purpose of an opening is to draw in the audiences attentions to keep them intrigued and wanting to watch the movie, as the audiences attention needs to be grasped from the start, making the movie watchable and popular, and revealing something to the audience that makes the want to carry on watching, and also cliff hanger, or interesting subject.