There are many ways in which a film opening can attract a
target audience. Firstly, as mentioned by Thomas Sutcliffe, the presenter of
the documentary ‘Watching’, “films need to
seduce their audience into long term commitment. While there are many types of
seduction, the temptation to go for instant arousal is almost irresistible.” By
this he is suggesting that a good film opening should automatically intrigue
the audience and suspend their disbelief within the first five minutes of the
movie and “announce as much ambition in the beginning of the film”. One way
this could be done is with a sharp shock at the start of the movie to shake up
the audience and let them know that they are in for a treat while watching the
rest of the movie.
However, according to Jean Jacques Beineix there are also risks to
instantly arousing the audience as the audience may not comprehend what is
happening, leaving them with unanswered questions which could confuse the
audience. Therefore, he says that you should keep the audience in suspense with
a slow start, making sure they understand what is going on by “nurturing their
desire and afterwards the satisfaction will come.”
Furthermore, as stated in
the documentary, “a good beginning must make the audience feel that is doesn’t know
nearly enough yet, and at the same time make sure that it doesn’t know too
little. This is because creating the beginning of a movie is deceptively difficult
as you are supposed to not only establishing the characters and setting but,
also tone and the audience is adjusting to what they are seeing and creating a
first impression and an initial judgement, leaving them intrigued to find out
what will happen next.
Stanley Kauffmann suggests
that a good way to begin a movie is through a classic opening. This is where
the movie starts with an establishing shot, usually of the setting, passing
from building to building, followed by a series of close up shots and then,
eventually some characters are introduced. This, according to Kauffmann, is a
great way of beginning a movie as it allows the audience to find out so much
about the movie in such little time frame which allows the audience to
automatically suspend their disbelief and create an idea of the setting and ‘world’
the movie is taking place in as well as beginning to develop feeling for some
of the more important characters. 
Kyle Cooper, the designer
of the movie ‘Seven’ title sequence has successfully created an incredible film
opening. This is simply because he has managed to set the tone of the movie
through its opening which, ultimately led to intriguing the audience, leaving
them ‘on the edge of their seats’, anxious to find out more about the movie.
This is because Cooper’s aim for this particular opening sequence was to make
it “feel part of the movie itself”. He did this through foreshadowing events
that were to happen later on, as well as portraying the main character’s
obsessive nature to an extent that many people thought the opening sequence of
the movie was “better than the film itself.”
Orson Welles is another
film opening designer and he was also the one who designed the title sequence
for the movie ‘A Touch of Evil’. This particular title sequence became famous
not only because of how fascinating it was but because it was intended to be
seen without any credits or title music. This was done to “plunge the audience
into the story without giving the audience time to prepare.” Ultimately, the
studio disagreed and disputed with Orson, who was unsuccessful in convincing
them. This led to the studio publishing their final cut for the movie which
arguably took away from Orson’s original idea. However, the movie was still
deemed “matchless” and helped revolutionise title sequences afterwards.
A quite impactful film
opening could be ‘the favourite trick of Film Noir’. This is when the
movie begins with its ending, similar to a prologue, this leads the audience
into suspense as it makes them question what is happening, partially confused,
but with the desire to find out how the movie has developed to that point and
the story behind the event.
The opening to the movie ‘The
Shinning’ is one that creates a lot of tension and suspense. This is due to the
great use of angles in the establishing shot, followed by a closer shot
following a car “like a predator from behind”, evoking feelings of fear,
foreshadowing that something unwanted is inevitably going to happen to the
people in the car.
Overall, a successful film
opening must contain fluency, flair and suspense, creating a sense of
familiarisation and disbelief to intrigue the target audience and maintain them
intrigued from the start until the end of the movie.
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