The artistry and brilliance of a film opening...

As the title of my post suggests, making a good film opening requires finesse and a good understanding of its purpose. You'll never see films with an opening scene of a dark graveyard and a ghost continue to become a rom-com with the characters happily in love in their new home. That'll feel a bit - disconcerting - to the viewer. So an opening should be, of course, relevant to the film. When a movie-goer is at the cinema or streaming the film online, it's very easy to lose their attention resulting in them clicking on another movie almost immediately or just falling asleep in the cinema, so you need a profound and engaging opening sequence. What makes one, is the ability of a filmmaker to successfully tease the plot and characters of the film, clearly establishing the mood and tone of their work.

A film opening has to be powerful - it should provide just the right flavors and teasers of information and foreshadowing, but subtly, to allow the audience to be caught by surprise by the climax of the film. You can't overload and overwhelm them with the entire plot, and if you've caught their attention, keeping hold of that effect is the challenge.

There are several purposes of film openings. They establish the setting and atmosphere along with the characters, giving the audience an idea of what to expect. Let's take the opening scene of John Krasinski's film "A Quiet Place" (2018) - a post-apocalyptic science fiction horror story about a family living in absolute silence, avoiding being hunted by mysterious creatures sensitive to sound: "If they hear you, they hunt you".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPuSnEr7X-E

The film starts with what's called a "cold open" - jumping directly into the film before the opening titles (excluding the film studio credits). Krasinski shows brilliance with his opening sequence, providing just the right dose of information - starting the film not at the beginning of the apocalypse but on "Day 89", allowing the audience to discover for themselves the immediate consequences of the disaster that seemingly already occurred, creating a sense of immersion and curiosity, allowing the director to fill in the gaps of the backstory as the film unravels thus attracting the audience - a sign of a successful film opening sequence.

The first couple shots show a post apocalyptic ominous setting, the silence of which is deafening and almost sinister, as you wait for something to happen - "What REALLY happens if they make a noise?", you'll seem to be asking yourself. The audience then, with the given information and Mise-en-scène can arrive to their own conclusions until they are confirmed or refuted as the story goes on. This is why I consider the opening of 'A Quiet Place' to be extremely successful in it's goals.

A counter-argument for this would be an example of a film with a not-so-great opening sequence. Although it's one of my favorite films, director Damien Chazelle didn't succeed in accurately portraying the plot of "La La Land" (2016).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVVqlm8Fq3Y

We do get an idea as an audience about the mood of the film: we understand that it's a musical due to the opening scene being a musical number and it's visuals, costume and setting refer to '40s/'50s Los Angeles, but it has no relation whatsoever to the main characters, Mia (Emma Stone) or Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) or foreshadows their love story/the problems that would soon arrive in their perfect relationship (which is the climax). Therefore, even though this scene might just be entertaining, you'd sit in the cinema thinking you were watching the wrong movie you thought was supposed to feature Emma and Ryan, so this - for me at least - is an unsuccessful film opening.

So to summarize, film openings are crucial to the success of a film and they can make or break the audience's opinion on it. If there's any other examples you can think of showcasing some films with great or not-so-great openings, mention them in the comments below!