4. How can a film opening attract an audience

The documentary 'Watching' explores the ways in which a movie opening and title sequence can attract an audience. We can see there are many different opinions on how the film opening can attract an audience.

The opening isn't just establishing story, character. It's establishing tone! The audience is making a very early adjustment to the movie. The viewer questions am I supposed to: laugh, cry, take it seriously, what's the nature of this, how engaged am I going to be? You're establishing many things at once.

What makes a film opening attract an audience is the fact you don't know everything and you want to know everything. Film makers question themselves. How can I wake them up, capture their attention, and put them on alert?





The movie instructs on how we should watch the film that follows. The movie makers want the audience to get onto their wave length in the beginning of the movie. The wave length that the picture is operating from.