RESEARCH - structures of a film opening

A film opening is the first scene of a film in which the opening titles are shown to the audience. The titles most commonly include the producers, director and stars. There are 4 main types of film openings:


-Titles over a blank screen
Is when a film opens with a blank screen ,which is usually black, with the opening credits scrolling (or moving with any other effect) through it. It is very commonly used in openings of films. This is seen in many films for example "Donnie Darko".

-Discrete sequence 
This is when a montage of random pictures or clips from or relevant to the movie play while the titles roll through, this does not include a narrative opening and therefore doesn't give much of the film away. This can be seen in "Enemy of the state".

-Narrative sequence
This is when the titles are super-imposed or intercut into the opening scene, this usually consists of titles  running throughout the scene or sometimes edited to it looks like the titles are part of the scene like in the film "Panic room".

-Stylised sequence
A stylised sequence usually sees the images and pictures specially edited to fit in with the theme of the movie, this can be used to create great effect. This can be seen in "Mesrine".