Stormbreaker, Woman In Black and Mean Girls

We analysed a film of our chosen genre, as well as watching other films with a similar opening and also with some difference. I watched Stormbreaker, Women in Black and Mean Girls and i have to compare each opening so I have the best possibilities for our project opening.

The opening of Stormbreaker, gives us an idea to the audience about what genre this film is, the audiences get a sense of mystery which links into action or horror, but the audience sees motor bikes and mini bombs so the audiences has the idea of action. However the very start of Stormbreaker we see a blurred image, which is where the mystery comes from. The blurred image of the opening is an enigma code and of this it draws in the audience because they want to know what is happening and what the image is of. The titles are then introduced into the film after the image becomes clear. They then use another enigma code to establish the setting and character. The scene opens with a shot of teenagers sat down in what is to be seen as a school hall, as what we see as a teacher is stood at the front talking about the students essays they have to represent. It takes a couple of minutes until the action starts. We get all the normal conventions for the action genre, which are Bombs, Guns, Motorbikes, Good guys and Bad guys, Flash Cars, calm/cool protagonist and a setting of a dangerous factory and cliff edge.

However, when we watch Women in Black we have a possitive idea of that the genre is, which is Horror. The film opens immediately with the titles based on a black screen and big, bold white letters, which is accompanied by non-diegetic music with mysterious tone being played in the background. However within the white letters it almost looks like somethings moving like water, which I interpitate as the swamp that surrounds the women in blacks house later on in the film. So this is giving a bit of a give away before the film has even begun, which draws in the audience because it creates an intense feeling of mystery. Also because the lettering represents the swamp and there is horror music playing, this is warning the audience that the swamp is not a safe place. The font used on the titles, is the traditional horror writing and it so simple and plain it sticks out in your face and makes you feel the tention of the fear that is to come, this makes the audience instantly identify that this is a horror movie. Compared with Strombreaker the opening of Women in Black seems to move faster. We have to wait to see what the genre is in Strombreaker as the image is not clear and the music is mellow. With Women in Black getting straight to the point it makes the audience feel like they know what they are watching.

Mean Girls is very similar to Woman In Black, it opens with the titles, this is similar to what is used in the Women in Black, however with this movie we are not entirely sure what the genre of the film is. Mean Girls open with colourful scattered titles representing the seperate social groups, so in similarity the titles in both Mean Girls and Woman in Black give a piece of the story away. But the bright colours used in Mean Girls connect to youth, so this does give the audience a hint to what the genre is. They then use an enigma codes to introduce the main character this is similar to Strombreaker, as the enigma code draws the audience in because they want to know what is going to happen to Cady when she goes to school. However what is different about Mean Girls, they use a voice over and a sound bridge so this tell the audience a bit about the characters and the story plot.

I think that for our film we will be using a mixture of each opening, we want to incorporate an enigma code to draw the audience in, also to introduce the characters we would use the Mean Girls opening of the voice over and setting in the normal teen comedy way, which is usually set in America. The film title of The Woman in Black starts with a bit of action then the titles come around, this makes it very atmospheric which sets the scene. We do this is our opening by showing some action first then the titles. We do this because the titles relate back to the character and gives the audience the label of what the main characters status is. Using the effect of setting the atmosphere on to the characters status and the films gender.