Conventions of Film Openings

These elements are all used in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960s film, Psycho;


The production company-

The production company logo is always shown first. The conventions of film openings set the audience for the whole movie. One convention of a film opening is the graphics used to introduce the names of the cast and the director, the name of the film and the production/distribution company. 

This screenshot shows the movie title and the beginning of the title sequence. The graphic video transitions reinforces the thriller genre; it looks as if the text is getting sliced which kind of foreshadows what happens in the film. 

The first actors name is shown and the same transition used for the title is used for this. This is carried on for a couple more actors, directors and producers. 

The editing crew are shown a little differently, and so are shown as a clump. This may be because they may not be as important as the actors and production companies.

The location of the future 'victim' is shown just before the actual film is rolling. The font size and colour is big and white so you can see it clearly infront of the shot of the city. We get a wide shot of a city scape, we cut to a shot of a building, then to a window in the building, then to a room in the building, where we finally meet one of the key characters of the film.  This type of classic sequence tells us a lot about the film to follow: the location, the type of area in which the film is set, the key characters, what the key character does etc.