Film Openings.

Film openings

Notorious

In the opening two minutes of Notorious, the genre of the film being a Drama Documentary on a Musician is established through the play of music and the beginning interview on the black still.

The story is slightly establish through the part of the second car pulling over and the driver aiming a gun out of the window. The quote "In the beginning god gave me a clean slate" hints that his life has detoured from being a normal person, the flashing images hint towards parts of the story

However the characters names are not mention and their personalities/assests aren't shown either, the fact that Christopher Wallace/Biggie Smalls (The main character) has the most screen time shows his authority within the film.

I think this is a good opening of a film due to the fact that within the two minutes it leaves you with a sense of mystery and drops you with a partial cliff hanger (the drive-by shooter)

Belly

The opening two minutes to Belly introduces the characters without a name, they are known to be the main characters as they own the most screen time, have the main role within the story shown and have their names featured next to them during the first minute.

The genre is established through the play of the music and the whole robbery scene, the show of guns and the playing of hip-hop music shows it is a gangster/crime drama, as well as the setting of a nightclub shows its a very urban film, However for the story it is not really shown much, we know nothing more than the fact that 3 men robbed a nightclub and killed a few people and a reason for why is not presented, this is why i like this opening, it straight away engages you into the film with the whole sense of killing and robbery aswell as making you think to why it would have been done.

Boyz 'N Tha Hood

Within the first 30 seconds of the opening the genre is already introduced through the non synchronized dialog and sound affects of Gangsters talking and then multiple gunshot sounds, this hints towards the Crime Drama/Gangster genre for the film which is then followed by a quote about black males being murdered to further follow this up as African American males are stereotypically represented as gangsters within the media.

The police sirens and radio talk of "187" (homicide) also points towards it being a crime drama.

There are two characters introduced into the film at the beginning as young children, their names are not presented but since they own most of the dialogue and camera time it is quite obvious that they are meant to be the main characters.

The story of the film is projected through the children and their dialog as well as them investigating the crime scene, the way the children speak shows that they are growing up in a urban setting as well as the subjects they talk about.

The opening of this film isn't my favorite but the use of the gunshots and dialog during the blank screen is a good idea to introduce the genre of the film aswell as keeping the audience somewhat engaged.