8/10/13, Research: Made in Dagenham, The English Patient.

Today we looked at two different film openings (two different genres) as an inspiration for our final film;

The English Patient: it opened with a close up shot of a hand painting on a canvas or a cave wall. They seem to be painting some sort of mountains or hills, and then after this shot they have a cross dissolve to an aerial shot of the sand dunes of Egypt, relating to what the person was painting.

Brainstorming: I think we could use the CU shots that they use in The English Patient in our final film as we have a lot of shots of the bath running and her mascara running down her face. We could also do close-up shots of the rope burn that the girl has which in turn triggers the flashbacks with the man who kidnaps her.

Made in Dagenham:  opens with an establishing shot of a factory, creates a sense of space and how big the setting is, then immediately the music changes and there is a close-up shot of women working hard sowing and making fabrics. 

Brainstorming: As there is an establishing shot, we talked about how we could use shots like this in films with a lot of nature/environment in the beginning in the film. As our film doesn't consist of any of these shots, we don't think these would be helpful or necessary.

After watching these two openings, we had a class discussion about establishing shots and wide-angle shots. These shots might help up for our final film, even though my final film isn't going to contain many establishing shots as there will be more close up and extreme close up shots.