Film Openings

In our lesson today we looked at how films are made to captivate the viewer!!!!!

Enigma Codes
The creator of the enigma codes was Roland Barthes. He highlighted that films like to give audiences questions, that they will want answered. This is so that the viewer will want to watch more.

Claude Levi-Strauss
Claude Levi-Strauss introduced the idea that in films they use binary oppositions, which means two opposites put together (e.g. A good character vs a bad character).


Narrative
Tzvetan Todorov was the creator of the narrative theory which is the narrative and narrative structure and how they affect our perception of films.
There is 5 steps to the narrative theory, here they are:

Step 1)  Equilibrium- the setting is established.

Step 2)  Disruption- The story takes a particular direction.

Step 3)  Recognition of disruption- Characters and events are interwoven.

Step 4)  Attempt to repair disruption- Try to solve the issue.

Step 5)  Reinstatement of equilibrium- Matters are sorted out, problems are solved and questions answered.

 

In the film opening for Harry Brown teens are preserved as being thugs and being very aggressive. They are seen exchanging drugs, riding motorbikes and shooting innocent people. This is to represent how the society feel that all teenagers are like this.

The opening is split into two parts, the first half is set on an underground in a rough part of London at night which makes it more eerie. The second half is set in a park, which is thought to be a safe happy place is replaced with a dangerous, violent place.

The theme is a thriller and a significant prop in the film opening is the gun which represents violence. The speech in this clip is very aggressive and is mainly swearing. There is a gang of teenagers and a women with her baby, yo6u are left feeling sorry for them. The shots are fast cut, with lots of shots that have been edited.






In the film opening of clueless it shows a rich teenager girls everyday life and where she is placed in society. And how she believes she is better than everyone else. This represents the hierarchy of the middle class and upper class in society. The setting is in a teenagers American style house and at a pool party and also at a high school that the school attends, it is set during the daytime.

The main themes throughout the film opening is a teen comedy and a few significant props throughout are shopping bags and material items (E.g. car, expensive clothes and a big house). This represents how the teen girl is spoilt and has a lot of material things, maybe these are to distract her from something bad going on in her life.

There is a lot of speech in this film opening, from the most showed character which is the teen girl. It is mainly narrative, because she tells us all about her life as the video plays. I think they may have maybe choosen a blonde girl to play this part, to be ironic of how blonde haired girls are associated with not being very bright. So it is being very stereotyical.