We can compare drama to a hundred-meter race. The opening scene, or the beginning, is equivalent to the starting point of a straight track. The starting method, the running method near 50 meters, and the running method about 10 meters before the finish line are all technically different. The movements of the legs, the way of waving hands, the balance of the body, etc. are all very different. But the athlete's eyes are on the finish line from start to finish. The opening scene should not hesitate, set off straight, without prior explanation, and must not wander on the road. If the writer chooses to set off fireworks at the climax, then the opening scene is the fuse.
This is a paragraph from Kobayashi’s "Lesson 1 of the Script". Whether the drama should be compared to a 100-meter run, or a longer two-hundred-meter run, or a 400-meter run, let’s leave this topic aside. I very much agree with the metaphor that the scene is a starting point.
Judging from the audience's psychological state, the audience will generally try to understand the situation in front of them according to the appearance of the plot, unless the plot is very unreasonable and unnatural. For example, if a man says he is a minister, the audience will think he is a minister. If he said that he lied, the audience would think that he was not a minister, and then if he said that I actually lied, I was a minister, then everyone would not know how to judge the authenticity of his words and felt abnormal in his behavior. The opening scene of
is to capture the audience's psychology and bring the audience into the movie from the beginning. To put it more extreme, if the opening scene is a warrior fighting, then the audience will think that this is the actual situation of this era. If the camera turns and the audience discovers that the martial arts scene is actually making a movie, their minds will change accordingly, and they will understand what happened in modern society.
It is well known that there is nothing before the opening scene, and a large number of events and stories will be brought out after the opening scene. Therefore, the opening scene is the first impression for the audience, which gives us a foreboding of the tendency and nature of the movie. The
mountain road
a burst of sand and dust, a car driving over at an alarming speed. When turning, suddenly, the car flew up, circled in the air, and fell off the cliff.
news reports
"the banker Semper died"
"car accident caused the tragic death of celebrities"
"the day of the announcement of the will is approaching"
"the inheritance is still a mystery"
newspaper editorial office
editor-in-chief Mark Wade is on the phone.
"Hey, Kornet, tell me the truth, how could Semper’s lawyers not know who the heir is? You can tell me from our relationship, who will get the inheritance?"
This is Frank The opening scene of the film "Mr. Diez's Into the City" written by Robert Riskin and directed by Frank Capra. In such a short narrative, the opening part reveals: The celebrity banker Semper died suddenly. He lives alone, with almost no close relatives around him. Even if there are close relatives around him, he is not surprised to hear that he has inheritance and rushes right away. People who inherit the estate. In addition, the opening also hints that newspapers and journalists play an important role in this film. Not only that, but in the beginning of the film, without any prior explanation, it described a serious car crash. The accident was even handled with some humor to some extent, and the camera quickly turned to news reports and series scenes, which also hinted The dramatic events that will happen next are full of expectations.
We can feel the talent of Riskin from the opening scene. If it is an ordinary screenwriter, it is possible to describe the scenes before and after the death of Semple in a decisive manner, or start from the news report, or choose the editorial office of the newspaper as the opening scene. . If you compare these opening scenes with Riskin's opening scenes, you will naturally feel the effect of Riskin's opening.
However, not in every case, the opening scene must be arranged like this. The most important thing is to bring the audience into the play. Therefore, the opening scene does not have a fixed pattern, it should be arranged appropriately according to the type and content of the movie.
"Mr. Diez's Into Town" takes the "incident" of a car accident as the opening scene. The opening scene of "Under the Gas Lamp" mentioned earlier is a typical example of "environment" (that is, time and place) explained at the very beginning. In addition, I will give another example with the introduction of “characters” as the opening scene.
grassland
The face of a fat, thin, uniform, young and energetic girl suddenly made a noise in the grass.
She sat down again, sitting next to him who looked good.
"Kiss me."
"Your mother won't agree."
"It's okay, fool."
kissed gently.
The boy stood up suddenly, shaking the insect net while calling the girl over.
"Hey, come here."
chased the insects and ran into the grass.
The two were chatting on the grassland, and the bright sun shone on them.
"What's wrong."
"That...I almost forgot, my mother kept saying that if you want to start a new family, it costs at least five hundred lire. However, I don't have a dowry. So, my mother will definitely say something. So can you go and discuss with your mother right away."
"Yes."
"Really?"
"Really, of course it is true."
started kissing again.
This is the opening scene of the French film "L’Homme de nulle part" (L’Homme de nulle part). The screenwriters of the film are Pierre Chenal, Christian Stengel, Armand Salacrou, and the director is Pierre Chenal. Tsuji Hisaichi introduced this script to me. The film first shows the characters, and gradually reveals the "environment" and "event" as they act. The following passage quoted by
is not exactly the opening scene, but it is a rather special example. The film "The Liar's Tale" produced by Films Sonores Tobis and Sasha Gittery is also the screenwriter and director, which was cited in the previous article, is the opening part of it.
The beginning of the subtitles section introduces the film staff, while playing the following paragraph.
"This film is written and directed by Sasha Jittery, his friend Adolf Bochard is responsible for music, Bordeaux Vijay is responsible for recording, Marcel Lucian is responsible for photography, and Parmani Shi is in charge of the set. "
" The actors are introduced below. The middle-aged woman is played by Mrs. Margaret Monroe, and the young woman is played by Ms. Jacqueline Drubak... In fact, this is my wife's wife. "
" The door opened is Roger Dexiu, on the left is Ms. Roger Drey, on the right is Ms. Ward."
"Seljuk, are you there?"
"Yes, what's wrong?"
"Ah, it's okay."
"Two fat people. The man is Lapuri and the woman is the famous singer Mrs. Fei Rui."
"It is Pauline Katun who is panting, and the one who is shaking hands is Pierre Assi."
"The uncle with an apron is called Pefeel, and the editor is Miria and her friends."
"The last one is our name on the door. Production leader Seljuk Sandberg.”
(music continued for a while)
soon, the shadow of a person’s head was reflected on the frosted glass. The owner of the shadow is a fifty-five-year-old, wearing A tall man with round glasses, he is sitting at the table drinking coffee.
In the courtyard of a restaurant in a remote village
In a quiet afternoon, street artists played the violin a few steps away.
The man stretched out, called the clerk, and ordered pen and ink.
man: "Thank you."
then took out a notebook from his pocket and started writing. "Le Roman D’un Tricheur" (the romance of a liar) was written in the notebook, and then he began to sigh with emotion.
(At the same time the picture begins to change)
French remote country-style scenery
"I was born in a beautiful village called Pangras in Vaucluse. My family runs a grocery store and earns about five thousand francs a year. "
(omitted below) The script of
(to be precise a movie) takes a special format. Basically, the whole film is told in voice-over. I think this format will be relatively rare in the future. I write it here. For your reference only.
In addition to the above, there are many examples of using subtitles to illustrate "time" and "location".
1922, one night of struggle, Dublin.
(music)
Just like this, Judas betrayed Christianity-he confessed his crime, threw away thirty silver coins, and hanged himself.
This is the first subtitle to appear in "The Informer" written by Dudley Nichols and directed by John Ford. Another famous film that took the same approach was "Dishonored" directed by Josef von Sternberg and written by Daniel Rubin.
In 1915, when the "iron ring" surrounded Vienna, some strange figures appeared in the dust of the collapsed Austrian Empire. One of the people’s name is recorded as X27 in a confidential document of the Army Ministry. This person may be the greatest spy in history, but unfortunately, she is a woman. Such subtitles appeared at the very beginning of the
movie, and then X27's glamorous and charming actions began to appear on the screen. This is a way to bring the audience into the movie smoothly from the very beginning.
Mervyn LeRoy (Mervyn LeRoy) directed, Claudine West (Claudine West), George Froeschel (George Froeschel), Arthur Wimperis (Arthur Wimperis) wrote " The opening scene of "Random Harvest" (Random Harvest) starts from the tree-lined road at the entrance of Myrbridge Mental Hospital, accompanied by such narration.
"Our story will lead you from this tree-lined path into an isolated and heavily guarded building in central England. This newly built military hospital has its commendable place. For people who were mentally injured in the fighting that was set off to end the war, the shelter of this mental hospital is too small." The
shot entered from the front entrance of the hospital into a doctor’s office in the medical center. The old couple who started to lose their son on the front line are talking to the doctor. A patient who has lost his memory and suffered from a language disorder may be their son. The doctor led them to meet, so the protagonist of the story appeared for the first time. This method can be said to be a frontal assault method. From the perspective of the method, "Mandarin Dream Revisit" is the same as "Humiliation" and "Informer" that use subtitles as the opening.
As mentioned earlier, there is absolutely no stereotype of "you can't write otherwise" in a script. The real job of a screenwriter is to capture the "truth" of the creative object and then express it in film and artistic methods. The setting of the opening scene cannot be separated from this idea. But there is one thing to note, that is, the work of screenwriters cannot be based on a whim of skill.
Generally speaking, when arranging the opening scene, it is easy for the screenwriter to put immediate interest first. If a whim idea comes from well-founded intuition, we should never reject it. Without such an idea, artistic creation will be difficult to achieve, but it would be very dangerous if such cleverness is the only technique.
At the very beginning of the movie, the title disappeared, the screen dimmed, and the voices of a man and a woman suddenly sounded in the darkness. At this time, the picture appeared. It was the first-class carriage of the train. The train had just exited the tunnel. The man who walked into the carriage in the dark tripped over the legs of the lady in the carriage. Moreover, at this time the conductor came to check the ticket. The man had a third-class ticket, but he had to make a replacement ticket but he had no change. The man wanted to use stamps instead of paying, but the conductor did not agree. At this time, the man next to the man borrowed money from an unknown woman to make up the ticket.
This is the opening scene of "Deep Boudoir Suspicious Clouds". The dark scenes in the tunnel are the so-called "screenwriter's whim". Why are there no lights on in the train? If you insist, there are some problems here. However, from the perspective of the tendency of the work, it is also a way to regard it as the screenwriter who wanted to make everyone feel the abnormality in the movie from the beginning. But for some viewers, this part is pretentious. If you copy this fancy completelyThe tactics used will only become more vulgar. The opening scene of
"Serenade" (Leise flehen meine Lieder) is a landscape painting. After the framed painting shook, the audience found that it was carried on the back of the protagonist Schubert, who is now going to the antique shop to sell it. Whether this is a whim of the screenwriter or the arrangement of the director, you can only know if you read the script, but no matter whose idea it is, it is undoubtedly inspired by the moment.
Subtitles: After the subtitles on the wandering man
disappeared, the picture became blurred, and then the board with the following passage occupies the entire screen.
Looking for daughter notice
born in the 33rd year of Meiji
name Hata flower
was fostered in a family in Anpu who claimed to be Kuma from Wushu Omiya, and disappeared with his breadwinner in Meiji 41. If anyone knows the whereabouts of Xiaohua People, please contact me, thank you very much. The board of
was put on his back by Tian Xinwu, and the camera gradually moved back appropriately, and half of him playing the clarinet appeared in the camera. The opening scene of
is from an early movie-in 1918, "Father's Tears" was produced by the Mukoshima Studio of Nikkatsu Company and written by Seimoto Kiyoshi. In the opening technique, it is the same as the landscape painting in "The Serenade". However, the latter hints at the character's solitary character while introducing the character's situation, and also hints at the warm story that follows. Although the technique is the same, the effects are far from each other, and the content of the works is even more incomparable.
But anyway, what I want to emphasize here is that the opening scene of the movie cannot be completed by a flash of inspiration.
article is taken from "script structure theory", author: Kogo Noda, Translator: Wang Yi ice; images from the network.
