When telling a story,
it's important to hook your audience
to make it impossible to leave before they see how it plays out.
The opening scene of a movie is crucial for this reason.
In our previous opening scenes videos,
we explored various methods filmmakers used to begin their stories.
"- Give me your f*cking keys, you f*cking c*cksucker motherf*cka!
- Knock it off. Get back."
- Today, we'll explore even more ways to grab an audience's attention.
"- I got places to be, a face to fix, and oh...
bad guys to kill."
"- Movietown News presents
"Spotlight on Adventure".
- Let's look at our first technique.
The newsreel.
Before TV, audiences watch the news in movie theaters.
This was called a newsreel.
"- Adventure is out there."
- While this tradition is now lost...
"- A series of explosions..."
- ...some films will opt to open with a newsreel of their own.
"- All of humanity's at stake."
- The newsreel can establish massive amounts of exposition
within just a few pages
helping to situate the audience within a new world.
"- How do you convince people that this is a fight that can be won?
- This is an alien invasion a global war.
With a new jacket technology and limited amount of training,
we've been able to create super soldiers."
- News clips can act as a bullet-pointed list
of everything an audience needs to know
to get the story started.
"- Good morning our lead story.
-...the world was stunned today by the death
of Diego Ricardo the youngest person on the planet."
- In the opening scene of "Children of Men",
the newsreel is diegetic
or in other words experienced by the characters.
It highlights the two most important elements of the plot.
The immigration crisis.
"- The homeland security bill is ratified.
After 8 years, British borders will remain closed.
The deportation of illegal immigrants will continue."
- And the fertility crisis.
"- He struggled all his life with the celebrity status
thrust upon him as the world's youngest person."
- These aren't minor details.
They are major plot points that will eventually collide.
"- She's pregnant.
Now you know what's at stake."
- Often, newsreels are just for the audience.
But by opening with a diegetic newsreel,
"Children of Men" establishes how important this new story is
to the inhabitants of its world.
It also establishes its high concept premise.
All within the first minute.
"- Diego Ricardo, the youngest person on the planet,
was 18 years, 4 months, 30 days."
- Let's turn to a favorite opening scene technique for a different genre.
Starting with the crime is a classic way to open a mystery.
With this opening, the audience watches the pivotal defense taking place
which the protagonist will investigate for the rest of the film.
"Knives Out" opens with the discovery of a dead body.
Director Ryan Johnson uses inserts to highlight certain elements of the crime scene.
Giving us clues that may be useful later in the film.
Opening with the crime is all about revealing and concealing information.
David Fincher begins "Zodiac" by faithfully recreating
one of the first zodiac killings with painstaking detail.
The setting.
The victims.
And the killer's methods.
"- We opted to have the silencer
because it was in the police report
that it was a silencer.
And also to you know again
show that the silencer was probably homemade and not really effective."
- By opening with a tantalizing crime,
David Fincher shows the audience
what the protagonists are up against.
Zodiac's random victims and precise methods
will eventually put everyone on alert.
Opening with a crime is a great way to set the plot in motion.
Our next technique sets the characters in motion.
Opening with tragedy
means opening with a scarring experience
that informs a character for the rest of the film.
Often, the tragic event will set the internal conflict for the hero.
Something that will haunt them
as they move through the main plot.
In "Avengers: Endgame", a tragic opener also serves as a reminder.
"- Good shot, hawkeye. Go get your arrow."
- When Infinity War ended,
half the world's population had been wiped out.
Opening the sequel with a small-scale version of this moment
reminds us of the human stakes of Thanos's actions.
While also providing Hawkeye
with the motivation that fuels him for the rest of the film.
"- I've got a job to do."
- "Arrival" also opens with the loss of a child.
But toward different ends.
Louise's character is informed not just by the loss
but by the memory of loss.
"- Memory is a strange thing.
It doesn't work like I thought it did.
We are so bound by time.
By its order."
While we watch a tragedy unfold,
the narration focuses on time.
An integral element of the movie.
"- I remember moments in the middle.
- I love you.
- I hate you."
- The sequence is dreamlike,
to evoke the feeling of recollections.
"- And this was the end."
- So while "Arrival's" tragedy pulls on the audience's heartstrings
by showing a character's formative loss,
it also establishes a key theme
that will be investigated throughout the rest of the film.
"- I don't understand.
Who is this child?"
- Opening with tragedy, immediately imbues a character
with a past and a motivation
all while also getting an audience emotionally invested.
Now beyond plot and character,
let's look at an opening scene technique designed for location.
Opening with the setting,
allows an audience to settle into the movie's world
and signals to viewers that this place is crucial
to the rest of the film.
Becoming almost a character of its own.
Ridley Scott's "Alien" begins with a haunting tour of the Nostromo.
And the claustrophobic confines
that will soon trap the crew with a deadly adversary.
Boogie Nights" meanwhile throws us into the excess of the 1970s
adult entertainment capital.
A great opening setting sequence
can establish themes in addition to place.
"Wally" begins by introducing two settings.
Outer space.
And Earth.
By beginning in outer space,
the film establishes the exciting possibilities
that lay ahead for "Wally"
in comparison to the humdrum life,
he is leading on Earth.
Gliding across Earth's surface,
the film places us in a dark future.
One where our planet has become a deserted trash heap.
By the time the camera reaches Wally,
the scope of the opening has emphasized the futility of his work.
Opening with not one but two setting,
allows the film to build its environmental themes
hint at the adventures Wally has in store.
And establish its futuristic world.
Starting your film with a setting,
can establish the overall world.
But our next opener establishes a character's world.
"- Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking.
Just a moment.
Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking.
Just a moment."
- Opening with a day in the life
is a great way to start a character-driven film.
Watching a protagonist go through their typical routines,
can show us their key character traits.
Are they messy and lost?
Or do they have everything figured out?
"- Good morning, baby. - Good morning, Mr. Breakfast."
- In "The Devil Wears Prada",
we get a montage of daily routines
that shows us just how much of an outsider
Andrea is from the world of fashion.
Without any dialogue,
we understand Andy's position in this world
and we are fully primed for her character's central conflict.
A day in the life can also establish a baseline of normalcy
so we can see how much the character is forced to change
over the course of the plot.
"- This is a story about a man named Harold Crick
and his wristwatch."
- For example, in "Stranger Than Fiction",
the opening showcases Harold's extremely specific routine.
The narration adds to the feeling of droning repetition.
"- For 12 years, Harold would brush each of his 32 teeth 76 times.
38 times back and forth.
38 times up and down."
- And the graphics surrounding Harold,
highlight just how calculated the phases of his day are.
Each more boring than the last.
"- Every weekday for 12 years,
Harold would run at a rate of nearly 57 steps per block
or six blocks barely catching the 817 Kronecker bus."
- By the end of the sequence,
we understand Harold's fastidious and unchanging nature
so that the chaos ahead will seem all the more extraordinary.
"- Shut up.
- Cursing the heavens in futility.
- No, I'm not. I'm cursing you.
You stupid voice, so shut up and leave me alone."
- A day-in-the-life opening, can set up a character often
without any dialogue at all.
But our final technique speaks to the audience directly.
"- Oh, hello.
I'm White Goodman.
Owner, operator, and founder of Globo Gym America Corp.
And I'm here to tell you
that you don't have to be stuck with what you got."
- With a direct address opening,
a character speaks directly to the audience
often breaking the fourth wall.
"- And that's where we come in."
- "The Big Short" uses direct address throughout.
"- I told you, we'd meet later."
- And fittingly opens with Jared Vennett,
conveying crucial information to the audience
about how modern banking works.
"- In the late 70s, banking wasn't a job you went into to make large sums of money.
Filled with losers.
Like selling insurance or accounting.
And if banking was boring,
then the bond department at the bank was straight up comatose.
That is until Lewis Ranieri came on the scene at "Solomon Brothers".
- In a different context, this information could be dry.
But told through an amusing and charismatic character,
the information is more digestible and compelling.
"- Let's make some money! What do you say?
- You see, Lewis didn't know it yet
but he'd already changed banking forever
with one simple idea.
- The mortgage-backed security. Or private-label MBS."
- This opening in "The Big Short" therefore
establishes this world of greedy bankers.
"- I'll buy $20 million.
- Oh, come on, live a little.
- $25 million.
- The money came raining down."
- A sharp satirical tone
and sets a precedent for similar direct address sequences to follow.
"- Okay. So here's how a synthetic CDO works."
- Direct address is an effective way to frame complicated plots
while grabbing the audience's attention
by breaking the fourth wall.
An opening scene's importance is unavoidable.
"- Okay.
Extreme close-up!"
- An audience will always take a film's beginning
as an indicator of things to come.
For more inspiration,
be sure to check out our other two "Opening Scenes" videos.
What other opening techniques should we cover next time?
Let us know in the comments.
Of course, with every opening, there must be a closing.
And this is ours.
See you next time.