Research into Conventions:

Film openings come in many different ways. Whether it be opening credits which tell us who the actors, producers, artists, etc are part of the creation of a movie. Each film will have their title card shown using different methods, music, styles and more.

The types of film openings are: Classic: This type of film opening will have a plain black background and white text, which is used as the credits text. These types of openings are not used as much anymore but are still seen in modern day movies.

Montage: This type of film opening consists of many short clips from the movie or short clips that portrait the film by use of images that describe the film. An example would be Se7en. The opening used in the film consists of many shots that show medical equipment, documents, evidence and more, all of which describe the film.

Animated: These openings are not seen too often. The opening is animated which means there were many drawings or animation software used to create a moving image. (For example: white chalked mermaids on a black screen moving around).

Animated Collage: The best example for this would be “Spider-man 3”. Similar to a montage except there are a lot of transitions (which are animated) that take you from one credited name to another. Direct Address: In this opening we have one of the characters speak to the camera. This way we know what that character is up to and usually find out what is about to happen. (This style was very popular during the black and white age of cinema).

Voice-over: The film starts with a narrator’s voice. The scene unfolds before us with the narrator telling us what is happening or what has happened.

Non-Linear: An example of this kind of film opening would be taking the last few minutes of a film and putting them at the beginning. This creates a cliff hanger making the viewers watch the film so that they find out how a character got into the ending situation.

But the most important part is giving credit to the people behind the production of the movie. This is why credits are made at the beginning and/or end of the movie. Films will usually consist of a studio logo or name or even multiple ones if the film was a collaboration between studios.If these logos are animated or simply transition on screen, they would be called a vanity card. These cards will most likely appear at the beginning of the film before the scene unfolds.

Some films like to be simple and instead of having an animated logo, it will instead have the production’s company name put on screen. For example: “In association with” or “A (studio name) production”.

Credits will also be given to the starring actors and film title. This can also be reversed where the title of the film is shown first and then the actors' names are shown to us. Then other featuring actors and the casting director will be named.

Films also give credit to the music composer(s) and the production designer(s). Followed up by the director of photography and the Producer(s).

Second to last we have the written by (person). This happens in the case that the film is an original piece of writing. Otherwise if the film is based on a book / film the film credits will say “Based on”.

And lastly we have the name of the director who put the whole thing together. This is usually presented last to signify the importance of being a director.

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After doing the research about conventions and types of film openings, I decided that my film opening will be a mix. This will make my film opening a unique one. I will be using a classical opening which has the black background and text but that won't be used right at the beginning and there are some voice-overs which are used at the end of the opening but again it won't be the main opening. My opening will start with action right off the bat and will have credits appear as the action unfolds on screen.