You may take a shot of This Kid Needs To Start Watching A Diverse Variety Of Films juice every time I mention an A24 film in this blog—hydration 101.
Although it is difficult to determine all the forms film openings may take on, categorizing them into simpler groups may enable me to understand their various conventions and recognise what direction I eventually want my own film opening to take for the Foundation Portfolio.
Generally, film openings focus on one or multiple of the following features to immerse the audience into the world of the movie:
Teaser — posing enigmatic questions and hooking the audience from the get-go.
Theme — hinting at the central themes the film will be exploring.
Tone — establishing what the audience should expect from the film.
Character — introducing significant characters.
Backstory — providing important context that makes the ongoing storyline multi-dimensional.
For a more comprehensive overview of how these elements may be highlighted in different sorts of openings, I have decided to narrow things down to more specific groups and will now discuss the types by categorising some of my favorite film openings into each one since this will help me distinguish between them.
Five Types of Film Openings:
(accredited to The Story Breakdown)
Prologue
A prologue can either be a montage accompanied by a voice-over or a scene without a voice-over. Prologues act as exposition, usually familiarising the audience with the key aspects of the narrative, such as its themes, tone, characters and characters' backstory. If not done masterfully, they can end up being boring info-dumps, giving the opening a monotonous or dull quality. However, an effective prologue is extremely captivating if it adds nuance to the rest of the film. An example of this is the opening of the 2001 French film Amélie, also known as Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain), which, aided by its fitting music, establishes a sense of vivid whimsy that prevails throughout the film and harmonizes with the imaginative nature of its main character.
Inciting incident
Beginning a film with an event that catalyses the progression of the narrative is a brilliant way to intrigue the audience since it eliminates the need for any initial set-up—something that could take us out of the story very quickly if not well-executed. In the opening of There Will Be Blood (2007), the protagonist discovers silver in his mine. The sequence manages to develop its main character and create immense tension with minimum dialogue, efficiently engrossing the audience from the very beginning.
Day in the life
Film openings that employ this sort of narrative technique often aim to cement a sense of normalcy which might be disrupted or changed in some way over the course of the film. On the contrary, this day in the life can also show a character in medias res—a fancy way of saying 'in the midst of things'.
My favourite examples of this are Lady Bird and A Ghost Story. While the opening of Lady Bird propels its audience directly into a tension-filled beginning preceded by a calm-before-the-storm moment, A Ghost Story's start, a juxtaposition of the tender with the strange, prepares its audience for a dreamily surreal and atmospheric exploration of, among other things, the haunting legacy of grief; regardless of their varying themes, both openings meticulously set up the characters, themes and tones of their respective films.
(YouTube does not seem to have a video of this film's opening so a mere poster will, unfortunately, have to suffice.)
Cold open
Cold opens, though usually associated with TV shows, are commonly used in films that prioritise enticing their audiences with mystery and drama, such as horror and crime thrillers. This is immaculately illustrated in the beginning of Get Out (2016)—a visually and tonally dark scene that sets the mood for the rest of the film and plants several questions in our minds, heightening the suspense and with it our willingness to watch the film all the way to the end.
Flash forward
By adopting a non-linear structure, film openings can become great tools to weave together multiple timelines in a relevant way. Not only does this act as a teaser, this narrative technique often establishes the other four elements too. In Christopher Nolan's 2006 science fiction mystery thriller, The Prestige, the audience is thrust directly in the middle of an exciting event while being effectively introduced to the themes the narrative is built on. Even though this technique seems to have been overused to the point of inefficacy, several of Nolan's films are proof of how such non-linear narratives can be highly remarkable if done well.
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