top 3 favorite film opening

               Top 3 Favorite Film Openings

                                             Eli(2019)

• The horror film Eli is about a boy that becomes trapped in a haunted house while undergoing a rare disease that are treated by mysterious doctors. But Eli's mother used the disease to cover the reality of him being the son of lucifer/Satan.
• Opening Scene time stamp:(0:50-2:25)

• The opening scene of Eli starts off with the opening credits screen to a black screen in which it shows a tree outside, the camera is tilting downward as it fades into the glass of the backdoor that Eli is walking up to. Once Eli removes his hand from the glass, the camera dolly's in getting a closer shot of the hand print and it fades into the next scene where he's standing on the grass. The camera tilts upward into a medium shot showing Eli breathing and running in the grass. The camera then goes into a low shot tilting back up, as the camera is tracking him as he's running. When he goes onto the ground, there's a cross cut which showed his point of view but blurred and then it went back to him coughing. The camera move to a medium to a close up shot as his face got red and he started yelling. As he starts yelling louder, it smash cuts into him waking up from a dream. This opening scene connects to the overall theme of the plot by basically showing a prologue scene without the voiceover which is like a flashback scene that reveals a pivotal moment. The purpose of this opening scene is to show the past before the events of the film.

                                          5 feet Apart 

• The romance/drama five feet apart is about a seventeen year old girl who spent most of her life in the hospital due to her having cystic fibrosis. During some of that time she meets a boy with same illness, but though restrictions dictate that they must maintain a safe distance from each other.

• Opening scene time stamp:(0:34-1:33)
  

• The opening scene of five feet apart opens with clips of various people living their lives and a voiceover of Stella (Haley Lu Richardson) talking about the importance of human touch. She talks about how you don’t realize how important touch is until you cannot have it. It connects to the overall plot of the story because in her voiceover it basically pertains to the fact that she has a disease were her and her boyfriend have to stay five feet apart and cant touch each other. The purpose of this film opening is to give a prologue montage with voiceover and/or a character opening tat is used to set up the main characters.

                                               Insidious

• The horror film Insidious is about these parents named Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne who take drastic measures when it seems their new home is haunted and their comatose son is possessed by a malevolent entity.

• Opening Scene time stamp:(0:50-4:38)

• The opening scene of Insidious starts off with the camera tilting downward to this light in which the opening credits start to appear and the camera starts turning in a circle like a arc shot. Then the camera tilts downward, in a long shot and the handheld camera is going toward the left creating suspense. As the handheld camera moves around the house, it dolly-ins into the malevolent entity and then it fades out into a black screen. Once it fades back in, it shows the title, it cross cuts different parts of the house and in between those shots it goes black. Once it fades out from the clock, it fades back into a shot where the mother is laying down and the color changes from black and white as the camera dolly's out. This opening scene connects to the overall theme of the plot by showing certain aspects that have a huge importance to the theme of the film . The purpose of this opening scene is to show what the film will mainly be focusing on like the entity, the haunted house, the mother, and the son who gets possessed. 

                         Comparison/contrast of the films  

Visual elements: In Eli, five feet apart, and insidious the cinematography used are long shots, medium shots, and close-up. Since Eli and insidious are both horror films, they use lowkey/dim lighting, haunted houses, cross cut, jump cuts, match cut, fade in/out, tilting, and handheld camera. But unlike those films five feet of part is more so using high key/ natural lighting and the setting is at a hospital.

Auditory elements: Five feet apart uses voice overs and dialogue. Eli doesn't use voiceovers but it uses more so background noises like birds chirping, breathing, coughing, movement of the stuff on the clothing line, thuds, the sound of his feet brushing against the grass.  In insidious, there was a use of violins.

Character: In insidious, the roles likely to be important is the son, the mom, and the entity which are showed in the opening scene. In Eli, the roles likely to be important is the main character Eli. But, unlike the other two moves, five feet apart showed multiple people but the only person that had real importance was the boy at the end and herself.

Representation: In Eli and five feet apart the obvious stereotypes are when the main characters have some disease where their basically allergic to everything and they have to have certain rules and boundaries due to their sickness. In insidious the representation is when the family try's to get evil spirits away from their child by calling someone to help do a exorcism.