The three film openings I will be analyzing today are from the films: The Outsiders, Now You See Me Now You Don't, and Nerve.
Nerve
This film is about a teenage girl name Vee who is pressured into joining a popular online game that challenges players to accept a series of dares. The whole concept of this film is based around the fears of technology, how people hide behind a screen, and the real power social media has. The film opens as if Vee was logging into her computer, the sound effects is the sound a computer makes when it turns on. This sound (which isn't directly about the opening but goes hand in hand with it) is used consistently throughout the film sort of used as a reminder, once the viewers hear it, it's like a trigger sound. It then is her computer screen, and her going through all her apps, showing her wallpaper, her playlists, her emails, etc. This technique was used to introduce the character without directly having her introduce herself. It makes the audience feel familiar with the character once the story has actually begun. This also makes the character feel relatable because it shows how her laptop is like any other regular teenage girl's. It then shows how she has been accepted to college and needs to make her decision, so it cuts to her in real life and it is a series of close ups that are intensely focused on her and her keyboards. Moving on, she gets a FaceTime call to which she accepts and the viewers can now see her and her friend talking on the phone. The mise-en-scene elements help establish a distinct difference in Vee and her friend's personality. The different color schemes of their rooms, how much their profile pictures vary from one another, and especially the way they dress. All of these elements and techniques helped develop the overall purpose of the importance and influence technology and social media has on people.
When I was researching on the behind the scenes of this film opening, I came across an interview of the designer of it all. Teddy Blanks in an interview explained how the typography is significant to the plot and storytelling of the film. They wanted the film titles to be bold and impactful. This information alone exemplifies how dedicated the creators were to really make a statement and impact of how crazy social media can be.
Saltburn
This film is about an Oxford student who invites the character Oliver to stay at his estate, but a series of horrifying events soon occur to his eerie family. The opening itself has a lot of significance. There is a sort of filter on the movie, as if filmed on film or a grainy digital camera which gives it an aged but almost modern feel. It shows the lightning of a cigarette and a series of flashbacks playing underneath a speaking scene that turns into voiceover. These flashbacks are all very light and happy and seem to play into and hint at what the movie had to unfold. When the flashbacks switch to the character speaking, it suddenly gets very dark, and the character's face always seems to be half lit. The cuts from happy to scary establish a certain vibe the film is trying to obtain. The location adds a huge part to the plot, it establishes the character's status and explains their culture and why they act the way they do.
The film's opening just overall very clearly establishes the mood and tone for all the characters. The opening sets up a budding queer love story. The opening has been referred to as a "beautiful madness" which perfectly sums up what this film has to unfold.
The Outsiders
The Outsiders is about a group of boys known as the Greasers who are in a long time rivalry with the rich kids of the area, the Socs. The boys get caught doing some bad things that had harmless intentions, so they run away and are left with a tragic ending. The movie begins with a medium shot on the main character, Ponyboy, as he is sitting at his desk looking out. In this specific moment, something that really stuck out to me was the sound. In the background there is a train horn blaring, dogs barking, construction work, crickets, etc. This all represents the chaos going on in his mind, as well as the conditions he is living under and how distracting it is. It then zooms in on him writing the story (as this was based off a book) with his name at the top and the page titled "The Outsiders." It then cuts to a sunset and the title which are both crucial to the plot. There is then a montage of pictures in the same sunset dream-like colors, of the area they're in which shows where they grew up and live now. The mise-en-scene is incredibly important to the plot, because his wardrobe shows that he isn't the richest of kids in their town. This is important to the plot because the entire purpose is to show the contrast in the relationships of the divide of their town, so highlighting that is very important.
When I was researching this film opening, the creators wanted to highlight the importance that Ponyboy is the one writing the story entirely from memory. It validates the importance that this isn't just a story about them, but that they lived it. They also reinforced the golden hour sunset to stick to the theme of "Stay Gold."
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