How To Begin A Movie

how do you start a movie it's a pretty obvious question but it's also one that is really well quite hard to answer one thing however is certainly clear it is a beginnings job to establish elements of your story take lord of war for example they film with a fantastic opening and I'm not talking about the sequence that shows the life of a bullet don't get me wrong it's a good sequence but the thing I liked most throughout this film's opening is the very first line of dialogue there are over 550 million firearms and worldwide circulation that's one firearm for every 12 people on the planet the only question is how do we learn the other 11 this one line of dialogue is up there with some of the best opening lines ever set in just this one line we've learned so much about this movie it's told us the protagonist is an arms dealer who wants to sell more weapons as tall as this film will deal with the morality of the arms industry and it does a fantastic job at telling us about his character and it does so in a very entertaining way he lures us in tells us a chilling fact about how many guns are out there in the world masquerading somewhat like a charity commercial trying to get us to feel terrible about that fact before they say the number is way too high and then he slaps us in the face and defies our expectations and says in his opinion it is a terrible number because it just is not enough and he wants everyone to own a gun and we can infer it's because he wants to earn more money this tells us that our protagonist has a screwed-up moral code and cares more about making money than he does about the lives of his fellow human beings not to mention all of that information is in just one line of dialogue not to mention it is such an interesting and entertaining line of dialogue to listen to - and we can go even more extreme why even have dialogue at all when you could do something as simple as use the title cuts take the shining for example the opening credits tell us nothing about the story they tell us nothing about the characters but when that music plays as the camera looks down at the lonely car and the road in that valley below the viewer can't help but feel a cold chill and that this movie most certainly is not going to have a happy the opening credits for the shining do a fantastic job at introducing that story's tone or we can go even more extreme why even have a camera shot at all take Monty Python's Holy Grail for example before any camera footage even roles we already have a very clear sense as to what kind of movie this is gonna be whether you less people's names and do it normally but at the bottom they have Swedish subtitles which progressively go more and more absurd saying how someone they want to do got bitten by a moose and where the disclaimer at the star is signed by Richard M Nixon and then it devolves into Mexicans whooping in a seizure inducing sequence before revealing the actual first shot of the film showing that it is set in medieval England forming this total non sequitur which does a fantastic job at telling the viewer that this is going to be a borderline insane absurd comedy establishing elements of the story really is the purpose openings have to serve and the difference between a great and awful opening depends mostly on how well they pull that off so a terrible opening will be one that gets across that information but they do it in a thoroughly uncompelled way the most obvious example of this would be the voice-over where instead of using creative shots and symbolism and well-crafted dialogue what do they have they simply have a character address the audience directly and tell them what the film will be about emojis here each of us does one thing and we have to nail it every time now firstly I apologize for certain footage of the emoji movie of this channel but uh secondly this right here this kind of example really is the most obvious example of lazy filmmaking that you could ever hope to find where there is no creativity apply there are no interesting twists and turns no characters revealed it is merely an info dump and is about as compelling as reading a Wikipedia article now it's one thing to point and laugh at all the poorly done openings out there so let's look at one that in my opinion is really well done now there are many fantastic examples to choose from but I think a great example or set of examples to prove my points are the opening - all three installments in the Dark Knight trilogy when we look at the opening for Batman Begins it tells us all about Bruce Wayne's character the first scene is him as a kid and the second is him as a grown adult but the entire focus of the opening scenes is on Bruce Wayne's character which is very fitting as the entire film is all about his character as it grows and becomes Batman but when you look at the Dark Knight opening that's when things really start to get quite interesting now first off the opening bank heist to the Dark Knight is a thoroughly entertaining scene but what more it does a fantastic job at establishing a vital element of that film The Joker and who he is in the first lines of the movie the characters talk about the Joker building this anticipation for his reveal and as the scene goes along we see one by one how he kills his entire crew the entire first scene sure it establishes the tone sure it entertains the audience and grabs their attention but it also serves one master purpose to introduce the Joker to the audience and what more when we look at the Dark Knight Rises Nolan does the exact same thing again he has an entertaining scene which sure establishes the tone and sure entertains the audience but it all serves the master purpose of introducing us to Bane's character and what is really quite curious is how at no point in these two first scenes is Batman ever mentioned not a single second of the opening scenes of The Dark Knight or the Dark Knight Rises is spent on the protagonist because why should it the purpose of any good opening scene is to establish elements of that story and what is the point in establishing the protagonist when the audience already knows everything about him because he was in the prior movie now if there's something I've learned while writing and learning about this craft is that rules can always be broken there are no absolute requirements that you have to adhere to and when it comes to openings the same applies what a lot of people will tell you is that you have to get right into your main story straightaway you can't waste any time and you have to start your main story immediately that's a total myth and there dozens of really good examples out there to prove that point but in order to realize why let's look at Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark so let me ask you with Indiana Jones one when does the main story star it's right here isn't it he goes into the jungle and there's that iconic scene where he goes into the Aztec tomb and takes the gold idol and then runs from the locals right well what if I told you that this isn't the start of the story rather the start of the story is here the scene after that one where he is a professor at his University this university scene takes place a full 13 minutes after the star of the movie then someone comes up to him and gives him a quest and then that is the starting point for the story when you take a step back and look at it the first scene of Indiana Jones is actually entirely irrelevant to the story that takes place in the rest of the film sure it has established hero's personality and sure one of the villains too but if you were to cuss out that first scene and leave it on the cutting room floor the movie would still make perfect sense and it would be a worse movie for now for those of you out there who follow my channel for a while you'll probably remember that a world back I criticized the film King Arthur in legends the sword for having so many redundant scenes and I said in that video that if you can remove a scene and the story will still make perfect sense than you should and this is a wonderful example to prove why you should never listen to me it's a wonderful example to prove why you should never be afraid to break the rules and this opening I suppose you could call it a short movie before the proper movie even begins is actually fulfilling a very important purpose and this is a really common technique we see in cinema Indiana Jones Star Wars a new hope Kingsman won a scream The Matrix The Dark Knight The Dark Knight Rises and also you could say that Game of Thrones starts this way as well all of these movies have short stories before the proper movie really begins once the first scene is over they will then cut to the protagonist which is the point where the proper story actually starts and which is the point which is traditionally played right after the opening titles and on the surface level this makes no sense because this short story it's redundant it is quite usually an entirely separate story that has minimal or no effect on the main one the main reason why this technique by going back to look at Indiana Jones works so well is it tells the viewer exactly what kind of story it is going to be it is going to be us following this archaeologist as he goes on an action-adventure to find ancient artifacts and it tells us that pretty flawlessly however if instead the opening scene were this one of Indiana teach a class about archaeology sure the story would still make sense but first impressions are everything and if a viewer saw this scene they would be quite excused for thinking the film is a thriller about a university lecturer that takes place inside his university or maybe even a love story between a teacher and his student which is a far cry from what the film is actually about and for those people who assume that what he then goes to Cairo and then goes and wacky chases in an action-adventure it would come across as almost a shock because it is totally different for the opening promised the movie would be about again you see this exact same device used in the matrix we see Trinity have an escape from some agents in a thrilling chase but it doesn't actually add anything to the main story it just serves as a wonderful way to tell the viewer what kind of story it is going to be about because if the opening scene were not sure entity fighting the police were instead neo in his apartment the viewer could quite easily come to an entirely wrong interpretation as to what the movie will be about also what's quite interesting to know is how the opening the matrix breaks one of the most fundamental rules of a beginning a beginning is supposed to provide exposition but part the reason the opening of the matrix is so interesting is because it does the precise opposite it very intentionally doesn't tell you what's going on or who the agents are or who Trinity is or what is the matrix it establishes questions like how does this woman and this man have superpowers but does not answer them this all comes back to the idea that there are no absolute rules for storytelling as sometimes you can break them even the most fundamental and the story will become better for it and I think to find an example of a movie opening that takes all of the boxes one is pitch perfect and how it establishes what the film will be about and provides fantastic entertainment value well I don't think there is a better example anywhere in cinema than the opening scene of Logan now what honestly saddens me that this film didn't receive any Oscars or BAFTAs or any real love from the mainstream Awards as for many people including myself it was their best film of 2017 but when I was sitting in the cinema I remember the shock from the audience as this scene played out for the first time there were people gasping and slapping their hands over their mouths because they were so surprised by it all the prior movies Logan has been this spry capable superhero who would risk his life to save another's and in this he is stumbling around barely able to stand up straight his fighting is sloppy he's old and gray and is killing people in a way that leaves nothing to the imagination which is something we've simply never had before as an audience and in this scene he isn't protecting some innocent girl or fighting for some noble cause instead he is fighting for them to not damage his car in this opening scene our previous image we held in our heads about who Logan was is shattered and right from the start mango does a fantastic job at telling us this film is nothing like the previous films were because this film is so much darker and when it comes to how the opening of Logan does that how it tells the viewer they film will be brutal and alien to the prior ones mango did a flawless job the word I'm about to use I hate to use especially when it comes to something as subjective as storytelling but I think in this case it's warranted the opening to the movie Logan is perfect it tells us so much about how far our hero has fallen to being a tired old morally corrupt man it told us so much about the tone and what the movie will be about and more than that delivers all of that exposition in such a potent way that makes any first-time viewer visible contort their body as they react to the brutal deaths the editing is also perfect as in the prior films there were these beautiful orchestral swells and throughout this entire scene the only music is the muffled beats from the Mexicans van as they all get stabbed in the head the opening scene of Logan is like the filmmaker grabbing a sledgehammer and then smashing us right in the face with it saying get ready you're in for one hell of a rise now when it comes to opening a story and rising in general it can be really hard and what makes even harder is when you don't have the proper knowledge on all those vital techniques and formulas out there I mean what good is a blacksmith using with potential talent if he doesn't know how to use his own tools in the first place now I know a lot of you guys who watch this channel want to write your own stories and make your own movie so that is why I am nothing short of ecstatic to announce that today I have teamed up with the folks at skill share and have just released my first-ever course on creative writing in this 40 minute course I delve deep into the topic of how to write a great character for fiction in which I give out a ton of tips I've learned over the years on making characters fleshing them out character arcs writing great villains and generally every topic around and writing great characters that I could think of honestly up a ton of advice into this course and I'm really happy with the way it's turned out now some of the tips I do give out in this course you've seen in some of these videos but the overwhelming amount of advice I give is stuff I've never said to anyone before so if you watch this course there will be a huge amount of fresh tips on the craft for you to learn from and what really is the icing on the cake here is you can watch this course totally for free if you want to watch it all you have to do is click that link in the description and start a free trial with Skillshare a standard membership usually begins for ten dollars a month however if you click that link you will not only get to watch my course totally for free but you will also free full two months be able to binge out on every single creative writing course they have in their massive library many of which I've watched myself and I found quite useful and their courses are just limited to creative writing they have over 22,000 courses on video editing business management graphic design and everything in between so please if you're interested in watching my cause for writing great characters please click that link in the description and start your free trial today anyway thanks for watching and I'll see you guys next time on the closer look

Channel: The Closer Look

Views: 3,273,564

Rating: 4.9196734 out of 5

Keywords: video, essay, video essay, movie, film, how to, begin a movie, openings, write, the closer look, closer look, the closer, lord of war, logan, sequence, opening sequences, writing, monty python, holy grail, the shining, matrix, the matrix, batman, the dark knight, indiana jones, indiana

Id: qQ2UtHMtOZk

Length: 15min 50sec (950 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 29 2018