Types of Film Openings

In the previous post, we already discussed the importance of film openings and how they can impact the audience, determine the genre, and set the tone for the movie. In this post we're going to be discussing the different types of openings-hence the title-listed below.

Backstory

This type of opening is one that gives more insight to the character, and their life up to the point where the main theme of the film comes into play. This opening is easier to understand for the viewers, as it shows all the main characters and the events leading up to the conflict in the movie. There could be several ways to advance towards achieving the backstory opening, one of them could be a brief introduction of the characters and their setting; this is typically the first choice as it gives the viewer some time to familiarize themselves with the characters and the story up to the point of the beginning of the movie. Another method would be to use 'flashbacks', meaning the character gets a sudden reminder of a past event, which gets the audience up to speed on the events in the current timeline. The film 'Forrest Gump' makes use of the flashback technique throughout the movie to provide insight into his childhood life.

Character

One or more characters are chosen as the 'main', who then lead the viewers as the film escalates. Often times what happens is that a film-maker may choose a certain (group of) character(s) to show the events of the film through their eyes, this could be done to keep mystery or to build up suspense; sometimes the character could have issues that prevent them from knowing the whole truth or to consider some other perspective, making them-in literature terms-an 'unreliable narrator'. The introduction to the film through a character is crucial to the first impact that the audience members get and shapes the way they view the rest of the movie, therefore it's very important to know what approach to take when dealing with this type of opening as it could in some cases determine the genre.

Teaser

A teaser is usually a few seconds/minutes long, there's a large variety to what it can include; anything as long as it catches the viewers attention and gets them invested in the film from the get-go is classified in the same category as a teaser. A typical teaser would include anything more dialogue, to perhaps a fight scene if it's the teaser for an action film. One of the best examples of a teaser opening would be of 'Fight Club' where the narrator is tied up with a gun pointing towards his head merely minutes into the movie. 

Theme

A film opening incorporating the theme in it would be a bit different than the rest of the openings. Let's say the movie starts with the narrator acknowledging the audience, right off the bat, breaking the fourth wall and asking the viewers (in some cases, rhetorical) questions. The audience, of course won't be able to answer so they're getting over the initial surprise of being referred to, but they will get an idea of what topics the movie is going to touch upon. Or perhaps a bunch of objects are shown before there's an dialogue at all, objects which might be central or a main part of the movie. A beautiful example of this concept would be Pixar's 'Wall-E'. The film begins with a song (Hello Dolly) playing while showing us galaxies, navy and purple with silver stars speckling amongst them. The view is incredibly ravishing, until we're shown earth. Compared to the beauty of the universe we were just shown, Earth seems as desolate and as disgusting as they come, showing trash and dust everywhere. This successfully shows the audience that pollution is a central theme.

Tone

The first few minutes, as we've discussed, shape our perception of what the movie is going to be about before we've even seen a fraction of it, thus it's crucial to make use of that limited time frame to shape the views in the film makers favor. Setting the tone of the movie could be done by various methods. The characters, the music, even the setting is important while setting the tone. For instance, if a movie begins with the first shot being of woods at midnight, the audience knows it's not going to be a happy, uplifting movie, but rather a darker one, perhaps a horror. 'Trainspotting' begins with upbeat music while we see two characters running while an Irish narrator is listing down things to 'choose' as he goes on, his tone changes from slightly neutral to complaining. This sequence shows us, the audience, that this film is going to be a comedic one.