I’ve started to watch different types of film openings in the genre of coming of age. I watched the opening to Boyhood and one thing I noticed was that this film put its title as one of the very first things on screen, before even the characters or setting. Music was the main part of the opening as well as introducing the main character, the little boy. Most of the film openings I watched had a similar theme. Introducing the character seems like the pivotal part of an opening to a coming of age film (which makes sense cause the movie is about their journey). I really like this idea and I want to incorporate this in my opening because I feel like it fits the genre really well.
During my research I also realized that coming of age has many different sub-genres, like drama or comedy, so I watched the opening to a coming of age drama called Perks of Being a Wallflower. The major part of this opening was the voiceover of the main character. This acted as an introduction to the character (told you it was common!) and established the environment around him. I like the idea of a voiceover, but I don’t want it to be cheesy, so I’ll have to think more on whether or not that’s the way to go.
Then I watched the opening scene to Gifted, another coming of age movie in the drama category. For this watch I focused on the ordering of the credits, as for the other two I watched didn’t have the major credits that is required for this project. I noticed that, once again, the main focus of this opening scene was to introduce the characters and the relationship between the father and daughter. We also get a glimpse into the conflict that might happen in the film, which might be due to her troubles in school. Ok, so for the ordering of the credits, I saw that they had the title of the film very early on in the film (just like in Boyhood), so figure that’s the way I should go with my film as it seems conventional for the genre. Then came the casting director, music supervisors, music writers, costume designer, film editor, production designer, directory of photograph, executive producers, and finally the producer. Wow that was a lot. The ones that I’m gonna focus on, however, (cause that’s a lot of credits) are major actors, film editor, production designer, director of photography, and producer. This film opening has given me an idea of how I want to order my credits in my film opening.
The next film opening I watched was from Good Boys. This film is in the coming of age comedy genre, so I thought I’d explore this sub-genre as well to get a good example. The opening’s main purpose was to introduce the main character as well as allude to the conflict, which would be the struggles of growing up. I definitely want to include this in my opening, as I want to make sure the audience knows the conflict right in the beginning of the film without giving away too much just as this film did.
After watching that opening, I decided to delve deeper into the topic I really want to focus my film on: the gay struggle. So I looked up different films that embrace LGBTQ+ topics within the coming of age genre to get an idea of how these films started. One film opening I watched was Love, Simon. This opening, just like in Perks of Being a Wallflower, began with a voiceover of the main character describing his life. Normally I’d think this would be a little cringe, but I think this opening did it justice. The voiceover introduced the main character as well as his family and friends. It also introduced the major conflict, without being too obvious, which was him being gay and having to deal with it in high school. The use of music was also really interesting as it added to the tone, which a lot of coming of age pieces do, so I definitely want to have good music in my opening.
The next film I watched under this topic was The Half of It. Ok I really liked this one. The film started, once again, with a voiceover, but what I really loved about it was the fact that the voiceover part was all during an animation sequence. It was so cool. I’ve gotta show you.
This animation sequence provided insight into the characters struggle of not fitting in and wanting to find love. I think it’s a really creative idea that adds so much to the film opening. Then the animation fades out into the harsh reality of high school, which I think is a really cool idea. The opening in itself provides context, an introduction to the conflict, and an introduction to the main character. I watched this video of the director, Alice Wu, who goes further into why she chose this opening scene. She talks about how the opening scene acts as a beginning to the discovery that her main character will go through in the film. She also explains how little parts of the animated sequence hint to various parts in the actual film itself, foreshadowing to things that are soon to happen.
The idea of an animated sequence is really interesting tome. I kinda want to delve a little deeper into this idea. Which brings me to the next part of this post. I maybe have an idea of how I want to start my opening. Inspired by The Half of It’s opening sequence, I want to incorporate an animated sequence into my own opening. I don’t know yet what I want to really do for the animation, but I like the idea of a stop motion piece, just as Alice Wu describes she did with help from her animators. The question is, how practical is it? and how good of a drawer must I be to make it actually look good? Questions I’ve gotta think a little bit more into, but this film opening really inspired me to do something similar.
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