Sunday, February 9, 2025

Cambridge Portfolio Project - 3 Film openings research

So relating to my last post ( If you haven't read it go read it now ! ) I'm still doing things related to the genres I researched last time.

Today I'm checking out some film openings to analyze what ideas could come from them, and ( more importantly ) the techniques used to build story, character, and anything else I missed.

 Mad Max ( 1979 )
Due to limited resources, this may not be 100% accurate but honestly all I can do is hope.
The introduction to mad max introduces the viewer to the police force of the film, the majority of the introduction is a chase scene that adds to the worldbuilding of the film and its story. This is done through the display of scenery, character interactions and behavior, and even the method of policing used.

Although, about twice, the main character ( Max Rockatansky ) Is shown getting ready for pursuit in a slow fashion that kind of tells the viewer that Max is cold / cool ( Commonly reffered to by our generation as "Aura farming" and reffered to in other generations as "Badassery" ). This isnt just done by the character's slow actions, the camera angles ( like the reflection off the mirror of the car ) and the costume design choices ( main characters sunglasses ) give off this impression aswell.


 Fahrenheit 451 ( 2018 )
This movie's intro is not the greatest, the film opens with a credit sequence that displays glitchy transitions between books burning, and bland placement of the credits ( as mentioned in the past post [ If you havent read it, go read it now :3] ). After that sequence theres a scene that displays the main character, Guy Montag, presenting to a room full of children and his peers the rules regarding books. The scene doesnt build much of Montag's personality, but it does show cocky-ness among his actions and words, what the opening does much better is establishing an ( although not book accurate ) understanding of the general world ( worldbuilding ) and focus, it can also touch up on some themes of mandated information commonly seen in dystopian genres ( the kids being taught disliking books [almost forcibly] when Montag holds one up ), but thats pretty much a given.


Since I mentioned that I would be looking at openings related to "the genres I researched last time."
(plural), obviously I cant forget a coming of age film.

As much as I wanted to review back to the futures opening since google told me " Yes ! Yes ! Back to the future IS a coming of age film " The crappy Google AI cant convince me to go against the lawful word of my glorious king Wikipedia. Soooooooooooo... I will be looking over the 2017 movie Wonder ( Wikipedia approved ! )

Wonder ( 2017 )
The opening of this movie starts off displaying the main character ( Auggie, full name August Pullman ) 's love for space in a short 10 second clip, before shifting focus to building on character through dialogue and clips relating to the dialogue, August is displayed as an ordinary kid who is revealed to have frequent hospital visits and many deformed aspects. There is also a reveal of the foundations of the plot in a scene in which August's parents are discussing school, but not much else is of notice besides the mention of August's deformities ( not completely confirmed up until now and August's dialogue directly after ). August is then shown reflecting on his looks and his experiences, and then reveals his face. 

Though it was hard to reflect on what may build character ( besides the obvious dialogue ), the astronaut helmet ( besides displaying the main characters love for space ) can also give the viewer a clue about how August thinks about his own looks, as the use of the space helmet is also technically a cover for August's face.


What I got from that:
In the opening I will create, I could take a few things for inspiration and guidance. For example, both Mad Max and Fahrenheit 451 focus a lot more on worldbuilding over building / displaying character, it makes sense, the dystopian genre ( and / or aspect ) of the opening could be represented through the environment and behavior. On the other hand, coming of age focused a lot more on the character, obviously, the whole point of coming of age is to show maturity in character, so the coming of age aspect of the film opening I will create could be reflected through direct dialogue or character based interactions / actions. 

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