What Entertains Mee, Lee?: Opening Sequence- Time to Pick a Genre

If you remember a few posts ago, I had researched the adventure genre for an upcoming "film pitch" project. I ended up falling in love with this genre, however, I can't be set on this genre without exploring other options. So let's research and dive into two more genres for me to widen my scope.

Horror

The main goal of the horror genre is to scare its audiences. It is my job to figure out what are the techniques used to accomplish that!

First is creating the right atmosphere. When it comes to horror, the mood tends to be dark and eerie in order to get the audience's blood pumping and their anxiety high. This mood is just as important to create as a well-written story and characters. To obtain that mood the atmosphere must match. This atmosphere is usually very dark and very mysterious. As long as the atmosphere captures a feeling of suspicion, mystery, and fear, then it is doing its part.

Another successful static for horror movies is high stakes. Horror movies need to have a story that is tense and keeps viewers' heartbeats racing. The story should have a good build-up and ramped-up stakes. If the villain isn't menacing enough or the end goal isn't hard enough to reach the story becomes too bland and boring for viewers and starts feeling less and less like a horror movie.

The viewers also need to be able to have good connections with the characters. If the characters aren't written well or realistic it'll take the audience out of the movie and scare them much less. Since horror movies typically have major characters dying the characters need to be important enough to the viewer for them to care. The villains also need to be scary and menacing. They need to scare audiences and get the characters around them just as scared.

The most forgotten thing needed is proper music and sound effects layered throughout the film. Music is very significant in horror films because it helps demonstrate what the characters are feeling and also guides the audience into what they should be feeling. Music has a powerful effect of raising one's heart rate and therefore needs to be used perfectly in horror films. This music usually is either mysterious and suspenseful or intense and loud. Both types of pieces raise one's anxiety and in doing so successfully helps create a strong horror movie.

If these elements aren't correctly used the movie could feel off and what is supposed to be scary could fall flat to audiences.

This opening scene from the movie Scream (1996) is a terrific example of what I would need to do as an opening for my project in the horror movie genre. If I decide on this genre I would definitely take heavy inspiration from the techniques used in this film.

Romance

Seeing as I want to widen my range of genres, let's go to something more light-hearted, romance. The romance genre aims to focus on the romantic relationship between two characters and how it develops.

The atmosphere in this kind of film is typically lighter and has a feeling of sweetness. This is to showcase the ideal of love and relationships. The lighting should be warm, soft, and bright. This creates a nicer, calmer. and hopefully a romantic feeling. In the end, the atmosphere and mood must achieve a theme of passion, intimacy, and emotional connection. The story should end with a happy ending to continue that joyful and safe feeling that romance movies tend to have, however; many romance movies stray away from this idea. Instead, they try to have a darker tone or even have a sad ending. But those are special outliers
.

The background and ambiance are very important. Romance films should have a lively world around their two subjects and should have an almost whimsical world on the outside! It should feel warm and cozy to then give that feeling to the main characters.

Speaking of which, the characters are the biggest focus when it comes to romances. They are the driving force in this genre, seeing as romance is all about the development of two character's relationships. Since the characters are so important to these movies, the world literally revolves around them. The lighting is perfect on them. Everything is for them to grow in both themselves and their relationship.

La La Land (2016) has an opening scene with a warm and light atmosphere setting the tone very well. There isn't even mention of the main characters, but there is a focus on the differences between everyday people and it shows their uniqueness and how they play a part in this film's world. If I choose romance I would definitely take this opening into consideration when coming up with ideas for my film's opening.

My Decision

I believe I still have my heart set out for the adventure genre. The movies in that genre give me a lot of enjoyment and I can never get enough. However, I am working with a group to create my film opening, so I must first consult them before making any haste decisions. I will present the research I have done here and of course what I did for adventure a few posts back. Then I will advocate for my favorite genre and hope for the best!