The Watching Documentry

1) What does Thomas Sutcliffe mean when he says "Films need to seduce their audience into long term commitment. While there are many types of seduction, the temptation to go for instant arousal is almost irresistible"?

• Sutcliffe is trying to say that films need to seduce their audience from the very beginning of the film till the very end. Thebeginning needs to grab attention of the audience or else there will be a chance of them not liking the film.

2) Acording to Director Jean Jacques Beineix, what are the risks of 'instant arousal'?

• The risks of 'instant arousal' is that if the beginning is very strong and gripping it would be hard to maintain that for the rest of the film or build to up strength .

3) Explain why "a good beginning must make the audience feel that it doesn't know nearly enough yet, and at the same time make sure that it doesn't know to little"?

• This is because this way the audience will want to carry on watching the film to find out the rest , it's a good way to keep the audience wanting more . If a film beginning were to give very little away then it would probably result in the audience loosing intrest and feeling unsatisfied.

4) What does critic Stanley Kauffmann describe as the classic opening? Why does this work ?

• Kauffmann describes the classic opening to start with an establishing shot of newyork city , usually seen from the east. After, there would be a close up of a building, the camera would go up a building to a window , then it would go in the window , then it would past the receptionist desk to the private office. The reason why this classic process works is because through this method you were told where the film was set.

5) Why is Kyle Cooper's title sequence to the film Seven so effective?

• It is so effective is because the title sequence has essentially become the first scene in the sense that it's creating an atmosphere and a tone for the rest of the film. By mixing the titles with images it hooks the audience, the audience can already guess that this title sequence is foreshadowing some of what might happen in the film.

6) What did Orson Welles want to achieve with his opening to the film A Touch of Evil ? What did Universal studios do to it? Why?

• Welles wanted to make his title sequence different and original to other title sequences in a way that involved using no music and adding no credits. He wanted the opening to be strong and he thought with music and the credits it wouldn't give of the effect he wanted to achieve. However Universal studios didn't agree with this method and so they created their own version.

7) What is meant by "a favourite trick of film Noir"? What is the trick?

8) How does the opening to the film 'The Shining' create suspense?

 

• The opening to the film 'The Shining' creates suspense due to the camera , at first we see this beautiful scene then the camera starts focusing after this small object in a predator form from a birds eye view , we can tell it's a car . While all this is happening with the camera we can also hear music that builds up the tension and suspense that we feel when looking at the scene , eventually we realise that the car is going in the wrong direction which can only mean trouble .