How do film openings attract audience?

How do film openings attract audience?

• When considering the opening sequence of a film, it is important to identify the target audience and appeal directly to that audience. Things that should be considered are
• Attractive storylines
• Appropriate props
• Interesting location
• Use appropriate conventions for particular genres – this allows the audience to recognise familiar features and feel comfortable with them
• Use appropriate music

Take as an example a target audience of teenage girls.

• Storylines should revolve around a situation appropriate to their lives and interests – boys / clothes / social life / music
• Props could include Facebook pages / clothes / shoes / handbags
• Locations could include shops / discos
• Music should be up to date and relevant to that audience / possibly from a current top star

Hypodermic Needle Theory – the idea that the media can ‘inject’ ideas and messages straight into the passive audience. This passive audience is immediately affected by these messages. Used in advertising and propaganda, led to moral panics about effect of violent video and computer games.

Uses and Gratifications – ideas about how people use the media and what gratification they get from it. It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives.

Binary Opposites – the way opposites are used to create interest in media texts, such as good/bad, coward/hero, youth/age, black/white. By Barthes and Levi-Strauss who also noticed another important feature of these ‘binary opposites’: that one side of the binary pair is always seen by a particular society or culture as more valued over the other

The first thing an audience sees at the beginning of a film is the film opening. This will either catch their attention and make them want to see the film or their attention will be lost. It is important to create an atmosphere which will enthral the audience and entice them into the film.
It is important that the opening of the film is in the style and genre of the main film so that the audience knows what to expect. It is often useful to introduce characters and settings which will be important in the film.


In my film opening which is in the genre crime/drama, I will make sure that the characters are introduced and the setting is portrayed to draw in my audience. I hope my opening will be dynamic and appealing.