(Pre-Production) Project Log - Week 3

This week I learnt how narrative structure, (structural framework that underlies the order and manner in which a narrative is presented to the audience), is used in opening sequences to help set the scene for the film to come and engages the audience in the film. I found that some film's use voiceovers at the begin of films, such as True Grit, to help the audience feel certain emotions towards different characters.In True Grit a young girl tells the audience how her father was killed and how her mother is grieving, this makes the audience feel sorry for the young girl and gives a brief outline of what has happened and ideas of what is going to happen during the film.

 Also, some films, such as This is England, use montages to help set the time period for the film and place ideas in the audience heads as to what the film is going to be about. This is England uses a montage right at the beginning of it's opening sequence, where there is small clips of different things which went on in the 1980's, such as a clip of Margaret Thatcher.
I have found that using different devices in the opening sequences of films helps create different atmospheres. Such as the montage in This in England, by adding upbeat music current in the 1980's, the montage and music connoted to the audience that the film was going to look at the 1980's in an upbeat, yet perhaps cynical, way. 


(Although this is the trailer for This is England - not the opening sequence for the film - a montage is still used. I was unable to find a video clip of the opening sequence).





I think that, if my opening sequence is going to connote that the film is going to be upbeat I will try and emulate how This is England creates this, through upbeat music current to the time period of when the film is set and a montage of current topics of the time period.
However, if my opening sequence is going to connote that the film is going to, for example, look at the dark side of drug abuse, I may use music similar to the violin used in Donnie Brasco, as it helps to create a downbeat atmosphere and connotes to the audience that the film is going to dark.


Overall I would say that, through studying how films use narrative structures and devices to connote different emotions and ideas of what the film will be about, I have a greater understanding of how to use narrative structures and devices in my own opening sequence.For example, I may use a flashback to give the audience a better understand of how the characters are or what has happened already to lead on to the film. Or, perhaps, I may use a narrator to do this, as I found the use of a 1st person narrator in True Grit was very helpful in giving the audience background information on the character's life.