Horror uses the conversions of being scary and tense. Here are three examples of openings which use this genre:
Arlington Road
Arlington Road's road shows of what you could do to create something thrilling, but not using a lot of violence.
In the film, we see the main character see a strange dying boy on the road. The film manages to show the fearful part by showing the mans desperation when he runs to the hospital, in a almost alienating way. This helps the audience to understand simply that this movie will be a scary film without the need of too much screaming and violence. Here is a trailer of the film.
The Purge
The Purge, is about the horrifying concept of having a night of no laws against crime. Thus this idea by the population is treated as a norm. During the opening the audience see the violent beatings and murders, the director uses a peaceful song in the background to contrast the differences, all the while the information appears on screen. This relates to the characters not questioning the horrors of the new law.
This opening lets the audience understand what the film will contain because of it's easy to understand.
Birdemic
This is an example how not to make a film. Even for amateur production, the acting, effects and story are all shocking bad. The acting is very poor even by low budget standers. The effects are laughable. Most of all the opening gives no impression of what the film is going to be about. It seems to be trying to show 7 different styles at once as well as being very boring for the audience.
Here is a awkwardly film scene of Birdemic, which shows all the faults of the film.
I want my opening to be a horror film genre but not be very violent, and focus on the psychological horror and have a certain mystery to it. Films such as Memento will influence me for my opening which I will use different aspects of filming to create a psychological thriller. To do this I will research lots of horror films and short films as well openings made by other students on YouTube.
An opening should express what the film is going to be like and reflex the genre of the whole film. It should interest the audience in a short amount of time.
Most of the time openings are simple, only showing the main characters, some movies show the minor characters but this is not often. To make an opening good you must have an original idea and different way of using it. The elements should be used to a full extent. Set, filming, characters and actors are an important put of the process to make the opening envelope the audience interest.
For my opening, at this current time I don't have a full formed idea, but I do know that I will have the gerne of tradey and drama as my focus point.
