Research into comedy film openings

Here are some generic conventions usually found in comedy films:

• A happy ending
• Normally 2 to 3 main protagonists
• Upbeat music
• Characters placed in stereotypical groups by their costumes and behaviour
• exaggeration of social situations (embarrassing moments)

Comedy films are designed to:

-Make you laugh

-Make you feel good

-Escape your life and worries while watching it

To extend my knowledge into comedy film openings, I felt it important to do two more film opening analysis's.  This time i will research into comedy film openings and i will relate them to our project.

Hot Fuzz (2007)

Immediately at the film opens, it seems quite serious and tense due to the lack of music and the sound of footsteps. Then, as soon as the non-diegetic music is introduced alongside the dialogue, it is clear to tell that this is not a serious movie, this is the first, and main indication of the comedy genre in the film opening. This poses the question for when we create our film opening, should we show the comedy genre straight away?

The titles are large, but not intrusive of the pictures. The titles are in a clear, readable font, but the font does not suit the comedy genre, on the other hand it also doesn't portray any other genre, it is plain and simple. I like the way, that to emphasis the institutional names, they use the same font, but just of a larger size. We have to really think about what font we should use, as i have learnt that the font says a lot about your movie.

The combination of diegetic sounds, non-diegetic bouncy music and narrative dialogue in the opening, adds to its fast pace, and also brings a sense of excitement to the films opening scenes. The opening uses very fast paced editing, which would probably make no sense at all without the voice over, but together, makes a successful combination. There are a very large number of camera angles and shots used throughout the opening, the shots such as the long shot, combined with the mise en scene shows us the protagonists occupation is as a policeman. You can see what is included in every shot, even though some are very short, this makes the opening easy to follow for the audience. The opening follows generic conventions in the respect that it has two protagonists. 

Drop Dead Fred (1991)

This opening sequence is unlike any i have seen before, in the respect that, it looks as if the whole opening was drawn by a child, alongside the childish handwritten titles. The opening has a non diegetic soundtrack running throughout, this music continues the child like theme, it's very fast paced and sounds as if it has been taken from a children's TV program or a circus. We need to consider our soundtrack to make sure it suits the theme. The soundtrack they have used, alone is enough to make the audience realise this is probably not a serious film. All the titles look as if they have been written by a child in crayon, and to emphasis the childish theme, some words, such as 'by' are even spelt wrong. Although the titles follow this theme which could potentially make the words unclear, all the titles are easily readable in the opening. Most title sequences tend to make the visual action prominent above the titles, whereas this sequence is based around the titles themselves, adding to the originality of the these opening credits. This makes me think that we need to chose what is the most important aspect of our film opening.  This film opening follows the generic conventions of comedy films as the soundtrack is up beat and amusing and what is seen on screen is lighthearted, funny and not to be taken seriously.