Pre-production Research: Analyzing opening scenes

Analyzing opening scenes

To fully understand how to properly create an opening scene of a drama/comedy (that does not seem unfinished or show lack of representation), we took a few opening scenes from Mean Girls (2004), Clueless (1995), and Perks of being a Wall Flower (2012).

Majority teen films open with a scene that introduces the main character, usually with a narrator speaking in a non-diegetic voice. As I was discussing with my cinematographer, she explains how we could do a tracking shot, establishing location and introducing our main character by using a narrative voice. Originally we planned to do flashback opening style, however we've realized that committing to a flashback would go over the 2 minute mark and leave the opening scene unfinished. 

                               introduces the main character using a narrative voice over, Mean girls (2004)

Moreover, The Perks of being a Wallflower really modeled what we envisioned. Besides the fact that the main character is male and his character and personality is different, he essentially wanted a clean slate and turn his life around as he first starts school, similarly to my main character. The films begins with a narrative, just like how we want to execute and the main character talks about his situation, his hopes and who he genuinely is as a person. We also see who will be the main bullies in the first few minutes, the audience can already tell that their will be a conflict that involves them later in the film. 

                                           Opening scene of The perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

Ideas for our opening scene:

Idea 1: 

We wanted to show our main character's "lavish lifestyle" by doing some sort of montage; preferably we want the main character to be the narrator and introduce who she is and why she is in the situation she is currently in, then it will pan into the conflict of her being confronted by the other main characters. We also want to include very upbeat, teen vibes type music while the montage occurs. 

To achieve the montage, we could either actually film a variety of shots that shows every fun aspect of her life. Or, we can take pictures, preferably on a disposable camera for the aesthetic, and present each fun moment in a collage style, almost like a slideshow. After discussing, we are leaning more towards the camera idea because it would be more convenient to do and take less screen time.

 model films for this suggestion:

 uses a montage of her lifestyle while introducing who she is, Clueless (1995)

Idea 2:

For the opening scene, we could do a tracking shot of the main character walking until she is rudely interrupted by the second main character and supporting characters. We still want to keep the narrator voice over idea, but this time it goes straight into the conflict rather than first presenting a montage of her life then the conflict, like in suggestion #1.

Furthermore, we want her narrative voice over to be rudely interrupted by the main bullies, even include a loudly interrupted sound track that resembles a record player scratching or breaking. This will stop the upbeat sound track that was previously playing as well and we can immediately introduce the following characters. 

My sound director and editor will continue to play around these ideas and see how their role will come in play as well. The biggest obstacle we currently have is deciding which idea will be most effective and follow the genre. This is where test runs and feedback tests will come in play during our pre-production planning phase. 

Final Decision

After so more debating, we decided to combine the two ideas. Basically, we will start with a tracking shot of the main character walking and speaking in a narrative voice like in idea 2, but instead of the audience just watching her the entire time, the montage of her previous lifestyle will appear in quick flashbacks. Essentially she is day dreaming on how her life used to be as she explains why she is in the situation she is currently in. This way we can combine both the ideas. Committing to the montage part of our opening scenes means that transportation will be necessary. We need to find the best places that screams luxury to take shots at for the "montage". This will require a lot of effort, and communication with everyone involved. 

Choosing our title

To make it easier for us to decide on a title, we use AI to generate a few titles to inspire us to create one. We thought of intriguing and direct titles or short and catchy titles. I was really leaning towards Masquerade. The actual definition means to pretend to be someone your not or to pose as someone else, which is essentially what our main character is doing when she pretends to be poor. We can also play with the masquerade idea in the title, I was thinking of doing a tilt, medium close up shot of a table. Then the main character's hand would appear placing a fancy masquerade mask on the table, the title then appears next to the mask. I want the mask to be big compared to the words to give a more dramatic look. The mask in the title also foreshadows a Masquerade ball that will occur at the end of the film, during this our main character reveals who she truly is to everyone in the school.