From this point on, in class, we're focusing on our final project: our Film Opening Portfolio Project. This is going to be a 2 minute film opening in which we create a story that we introduce and work on the credits, editing, title screen, camera work, set and props, and, well, basically everything. Easy! Well not quite. Last week we reviewed the way many films handle their openings— establishing tone, introducing characters, establishing setting or background, sometimes they allude to future conflict or create mystery for the film.
Stranger Than Fiction (2006) focuses on introducing the main character as the narrator walks the viewer through Harold's, the main character, daily routine. This allows us to understand who the character we will follow through the film is until, near the end of the opening when the narrator says that "on Wednesday [his] wristwatch changed everything," which alludes to a direction in which the rest of the movie will go. Attached is the film's opening.
EMMA (2020) follows Stranger Than Fiction's method and, from the beginning, shows us Emma. She is shown to be of an upper class in an early 19th century city, and, a text screen in the beginning also explains that she's lived a very simple life thus far. She has servants to attend her and lives in a grand house, but there's more to be known as she knocks on someone's door and the film's opening comes to an end.
Introducing the character in the opening is my favorite way to go about creating a film opening. I am someone who tends to get deeply attached to fictional characters so centering the beginning of the film around this is very fun and interesting to me. I think my partner Sofia is also very interested in this so establishing our character may be the path we take when creating our own opening.
On the other hand, I am a big fan of film openings that use a sort of montage method, and these are often used to portray the setting of a film. Focusing on the details by using costume design, props, or specific angles, film's can explain a lot of what is happening through the setting's details alone, which I find to be very interesting.
One of my favorite films, Lady Bird (2017), includes a small montage of a school day in Christine's, the main character, life. This includes many small glimpses into what a regular day looks like for her, but also begins to set up the way that she doesn't quite fit in into her environment.
Overall, I'm very excited to being working on this project, there are so many ways to approach it that it feels a little overwhelming but fun nonetheless. I'm thinking that my partner and I could do a mix of a character introduction and a setting montage focusing on a coming of age story as I spoke about in a previous blog in this portfolio project, but nothing is set in stone just yet. More to come in this blog regarding this project, very excited.
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