Example Film Openings

I'm still deep into the research process and I came across this incredible YouTube video that is a collage of film openings from some of the most iconic movies. It basically proves how important the first impression is to a viewer. All of the shots in this video are incredible, and it makes me inspired to have to think of a way to capture the audience's attention within the first few seconds. From this video, I took away three main categories of opening shots.

1. Establishes Setting
From this collage of film openings, I found many of them starting with an image of a location, whether is be a long shot of planets, a medium shot of some palm trees, or even a fast panning aerial shot of a city in the opening of the movie Leon. This makes sense in my mind, as setting is one of the most important components in introducing a story. Looking into my future project, possibly starting with a long shot of buildings is the way to go.

2. Establishes a character 
Something else I noticed about a bunch of the opening shots from this YouTube video had people in them. Often opening shots serve to introduce the main or supporting character right at the beginning of the movie. For instance the opening shot of the movie, Road to Perdition, shows a zoom of a young man with his back to the camera, acting as short introduction of the character.

3. Other
This last category is what I made for all the things featured in the first shot that are not locations or people. I see openings shots of cars, tree branches, and flags in the video collage. The most memorable one for me was the opening shot from The Matrix, which features the green numbers which are an iconic detail of the film. However, as opening shots mostly introduce people or settings, I find myself straying away from the "other" category in the future.