'Watching' Documentary

"films need to seduce their audience into a long term commitment. While there are many types of seduction, the temptation to go for instant arousal is almost irresistible" - Thomas Sutcliffe

The Quote above was said by Thomas Sutcliffe, it was his argument that an opening to a film can be presented in 2 ways to capture the audience, the first way is that you can set things off nice and slow introducing the necessities OR you can get straight in with the action and kick things off with a BOOM! (instant arousal)

I feel that kicking things off with a BOOM straight away is more seductive because from the moment the film starts the audience will be hooked and should remain that way the whole way through.

Jean Jacques Beineix (Director) feels that when you start a production with a instant arousal your audience is already compromised and satisfied and then they are expecting are more of what they had a first taste of in the begging, Jean Jacques Beineix explains when you start with a massive opening the rest of the film has nothing to offer and your audience will have lost intrest therefore you need to start slow and gather all you can and collect your audience up to the big climax at the end.

In my opinion, i think it depends on what type of production your catering for also what your target audience is, for example a younger target of audience wants to be WOWED from start to finish and worry less about trying to work out plot.


"a good beginning must make the audience feel that it dosent know nearly enough yet, and at the same time make sure that it dosent know too little" - Thomas Sutcliffe


The quote above means that you mustn't give all yopur information away at the start of a film because your audinece will fell like they know too miuch and will not be interested, at the same time you can't give them too little because they will feel that the film is too complicated and again will not be interested. I tottally agree.

Critic Stanley Kauffman says the classic opening is good because there is a shot of the building then a window on a building then the camera goes through the window past the office, through the reception into the head office, then the film begins. By this opening you gain insight that everything is normal, you establish the setting where you are and it can see totally controversial between the begging and the end. because is perceives normality.

The titles sequences to the movie Se7en is effective because it foreshadows what might happen within the film and it shows the obsessive physcotic name of the films main character.

A favourite trick of film noir is the opening to the film is the end, they open the film with the main character dying but we later find out it is actually a flashback.

The opening to the film Shining creates suspense because the camera is from like a birds eye view following a car. the car acts as the prey and we dont know where its going because its just going along an empty road so there are lots of questions to be answered just by the opening.