My idea's for gangster movie opening sequences were for a family in a mafia to be reading a newspaper the day after the end of events which the newspaper's front page article is about;
'A possible idea for an opening scene to this film would be to show the Capello’s reading a newspaper article about the events of the past few weeks, and then using this as a continuation as a narration throughout the film. The scene would begin with a black background, with white writing saying ‘New York, 1973’. It would then become a long shot of a large room, with low key lighting, containing a large round table lit up by a spotlight above the table, sitting a middle aged woman who is holding a news paper and reading intensively, and eight young men, and six young women. One of the young women, a daughter of hers, asks what she is reading, and she proceeds to read aloud the headline of the paper, as the camera zooms in to a close up shot of her face as she does so. The camera quickly shows the reactions of the young men and women as she finishes, and one of the men, her son in law, stands up and walks round to the older woman and stands next to her, and the camera zooms out to another long shot of the table as the others in the room watch him. The camera zooms in to a midshot, as he begins mumbling parts of the article, and the older woman begins to read the first paragraph aloud, and the man goes and take his seat. As she reads, the others watch her, and then the screen blacks out.'
The second is of three men from the same family walking down an alleyway and into a shop to meet with a man who works at the shop;
'Another possible opening sequence would be to show the three men walking through the alleyway to the shop. The scene would begin with the black background and white writing saying ‘New York, 1973’. It would then cut to an establishing shot of the alleyway they’re in, with them as silhouettes at the end of the lowly lit alley. The camera remains in the same place and as they walk, talking about where they’re going and why, they walk into long shots, mid shots, and eventually, close ups of the three men as they talk. It then goes into an extreme close up of one of he mans hands as he opens the shop door, and then a long shot of the door as the man opens it. The three men then go and stand in front of a desk, which has a man sat behind it. There is an over shoulder shot of the man as he gets to his feet, and the cameras follows him this way as he leads them into a store cupboard. It then shows a close up of him as he shuts the door, ending of the door shutting in front of the camera, leaving the screen black.'
In lesson today, we got into groups and assessed each others opening sequences. I received mainly positive criticism, as the other members of the group all felt that my idea for the first opening sequence was different, as it is like a narration to the entire film idea, as well as happening after the events of the entire movie. They thought that the second one was also good, as it was a good link to the rest of the movie, but simple and also in the right order of events.
Their only criticism was that both opening sequences are very slow, and in most gangster movies they'd be much more speedy than talking and/or walking.
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