Conventions of an Opening Sequence - Drama-mystery

Now that my group and I have successfully agreed on what genre of opening sequence we wanted to produce we are now able to watch existing products in order to identify and establish the conventions of a drama mystery opening sequence.

To begin I look into several films that fitted our genre including Premonition, The Forgotten, Black Swan, Se7en, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Donnie Darko. Using these films as a source was a good place to start as they provided me with a good indication of what we could include when planning our final production.

Above is the opening of the film 'Se7en' which is an example of a successful mystery film. From watching this i was aware of how titles we incorporated in to the scene. I liked the way the font of the text was able to help emphasize the tone of the film along with how they jumped around on the screen, when thinking about my own production I would also like to have a text that represents the plot of our story. The coloring in this opening is very shadowy and has dim lighting which again helps to set the tone. The visuals show are mostly extreme close ups and the objects shown are able to for shadow the rest of the story which a convention of most other opening sequences. The extreme close ups only allows the audience to see small areas of the objects which can leave them feel intriguing of what the full picture will be.

From this I have learnt that the lighting also plays a big part in the opening sequence which I was not as aware of before. The use of titles are also important as they help to create the desired atmosphere for the viewer and having a font that does not fit the genre or story could break the desired tone.

 One of the other openings that I found interesting was the opening sequence to the film 'Black Swan'. The sequence is very simplistic but still has a powerful impact, what intrigued me most about the opening was the pace of the scene and how the music effects this.
The begging starts very gently as she draws the line and the music starts very calm and rhythmic. As the sequence progresses the drawing becomes quick and more erratic as this is complemented from the music picking up in tempo and strength, this could also be applied to the film as it starts with an ordinary girl but through at the film her life intensifies and eventually becomes hard to control.

When watching this I liked the idea of starting my opening sequence very softly with an ordinary situation and have it progress in to something bigger and more intriguing and I feel choosing a appropriate sound track is crucial to being able to achieve this.

Overall from carrying out this research I was able to identify several conventions that are most suited to a drama-mystery, one of these would be using props and scenario which are able to drop subtle hints to audience and foreshadow the story with out giving to much away. The correct use of titles is also important as using the correct font can help fit the genre. The soundtrack used in drama-mysteries are rarely upbeat so I feel the one I choose to use should be more serious and emotional.

Now that I have happily identified genre and convention I will be able to apply it to my own opening sequence, next I will establish who my target audience might be.