Opening scenes

 

    Hi blog! So, it's officially week #2 and my team and I have continued brainstorming for the project! You may be thinking, "Kenna, you never told us your genre". Well, my group and I have officially decided on one genre to focus on is.....drumroll please.....Coming of Age! So to gain some inspiration for the film opening in this genre, I decided to watch 3 different openings from other coming of age films.

 

The first film opening I decided to analyze was "Moxie" (Paper Kite Studios) it's an empowering coming of age film, and the target audience is teenagers, specifically females or LGBTQ+ individuals. It instantly begins with foley sounds of someone running through a forest, followed by the matching clip to go with the sound, which grabs the audience's attention with the mysterious lighting. It flashes in between that clip and a black screen with the credits, which is a suspenseful way to display credits

that I enjoyed. The character development of this genre is the main focus, so we gradually start seeing more of the girl's features, such as her hair, face, outfit, etc. The creepy sounds continue as the girl screams inaudibly, and eventually we hear a jingle sound that could be a phone alarm, followed by the dream ending, and the girl sits up in her own bed, partnered with the movie logo. The girl then starts looking at a college essay question, which introduces what the plot will be about. I loved this excerpt, and I liked the style of gradually revealing more about the character, as it fits the genre very well, and I will try to utilize that for my own film opening.

The next film I decided to research was "13 going on 30", which I mentioned in a recent post. It begins with a blue screen and some upbeat 80s music. The screen became glittery as the credits roll, which is certainly foreshadowing to the movie, the blue background fades into the clouds of the classic school yearbook picture backdrop. This establishes the setting of middle school, and the main character is displayed sitting down in the chair. The picture is  taken, and ends up very

poorly, which is a classic way to represent a "messy" character who is in school. The logo is then shown with the same sparkly background as before. Although this is not the most interesting intro in terms of production, it was a nice way to establish character and tone with the consistent upbeat music that will play throughout the entire film. Same as before, the character development is the most important thing for coming of age films, so I will certainly be using a similar technique of developing character.

    Finally, I researching the film "Thirteen" (Searchlight Pictures) (2003), which is a coming of age film that is very similar to the target audience of our project, as we would like to aim it to teenagers. The intro began with another black screen with white typewriter font in the corners featuring the studios and companies that created the film. However, unique to the last two, it instantly introduces the main character by showing a shot of her face with heavy metal rock in the background, since the aesthetic

and character building are the most important aspects of the film.an entire scene occurs between the two characters, followed by another black screen with the logo of the same font as the opening credits. This movie is so reliant on how the characters interact with each other throughout the film, so including the characters in the opening scene is extremely important.

Through doing this research, I learned several things that I will and will not be including in my personal project when it comes to opening scenes. Until next time!❤️