Documentary on film openings

I watched the 'watching documentary, and gained a lot of interesting information which i thought i might share with you. !

"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"

Thomas Sutcliffe explains that a film opening should slowly seduce the audience into the film by only allowing them to see something calm, instead of hitting them with something dramatic, full of drama

really dramatic 

slowly and slowly seduces their act

According to director Jean Jacques Beineix, the risks of 'instant arousal' makes the audience expect a lot more later on in the film, which will not happen. He believes in starting a film opening slowly then delivering the dramatic action later on in the film will entise the audience enough to want to continue watching and see what else the film has in store for them.

"A good beginning must make the audience feel that it doesn't know nearly enough yet, and at the same time make sure that it doesn't know too little" because allowing the audience to only know a little bit about the film makes them want to watch on to find 


The critic Stanley Kauffmann describes as classic opening to start with an establishing shot for example, new york city. Which then zooms in and you see a building, followed by a window then a room where all the action would be taking place.This establishes normality at the beginning.

Kyle Coopers title sequence to the film Seven was so effective because it makes you feel like part of the movie, foreshadows next events, show the obsessive psycho nature of the main character.

A favourite trick of film noir was to start the beginning of the film with the end scene of the film. 


The opening of the film 'the shining' creates suspense by using a birds eye view making it seem like the camera is like a predator following the car. The direction of the car also is going in the wrong direction, into an isolated place which makes the audience instantly know that something is wrong.