Researching Film Openings - Portfolio Blog #3

 Today I met up with my group and we discussed what we our project will be. It didn't take long to decide on futuristic western sci-fi. Sounds crazy, I know. I think that idea is way too far fetched, so we decided to just research two separate genres, western and sci-fi. From here we will pick one of the two.

#1 Rango

A weird film for sure, not traditional Western at all. It starts with Rango trapped in his cage. We see how he feels about the encloser he is in and how he spends his time, as well as a little bit of foreshadowing. The entertaining thing about this is that Rango is the only person in this scene, yet he is talking to objects as if they where people. The opening ends with Rango's encloser breaking open and leaves the audience and Rango with a big question; what to do now?]

Rango opening:

In (TITLE HERE), the creators of the movie talk about how they wanted to make something that broke the bounders of westerns and animated movies. You can see this in the the character design, characters are asymmetrical and far from Disney's cute animated animal style. The creators also wanted to play on western tropes in fun ways, which doesn't show up until later in the movie. This is ideal for me, I want to create something unique and intriguing. 

The documentary: 

#2 A Fistful of Dollars

I never watched this movie, I don't watch a lot of westerns. However I think it sets the conflict for the rest of the movie pretty well. Two families that hate each other in a crime ridden town, a nameless man plots a way to exploit both families, he releases a captive of one of the family's (the Rojos) and then confronts that family. The movie ends with the man killing the Rojos.

 

A Fistful of Dollars opening: 

This movie has a very simple opening that says more about the main characters surrounding that the character himself. The Man just watches what goes down, he never attempts to step in. An approach like this may be simpler for me, since it's far more focused on world building. Western genres are characterized by the landscape too, so a focus on that might make my job easier too. 

#3 The Bladerunner

Moving on to sci-fi, the plot of The Bladerunner is mostly focused on the struggles of the protagonist as he attempts to hunt down Replicants (bio engineered humans). The films opening is rather abstract at the beginning, it starts giving questions the viewer questions throughout.

The Bladerunner opening:

I assume this is a staple sci-fi movies, just giving the viewer thousands of questions until the movie answers them. I also assume all those questions are what keep the viewers hooked. If we do go the sci-fi route I'm sure our opening will have this confusing sort of story too.