Art of the Title Grid Activity

The Film Idea
Three best friends fight for the attention of the school's new heartthrob. The three friends all catch sight of the new guy which leads to them fighting over him. But who will win?

Information Included
In this opening we establishes the setting, a high school; the main characters; the relationship between them all, namely the three girls being friends; the genre of the film, which is obviously a teen rom-com; the title of the film, "The Competition"; and finally the credits, the names of each actor/actress as they appear.

Titles
We used a high school or college type font throughout the opening in order to establish the teen rom-com genre, as well as creating the setting of a high school.

Audience Reaction
Immediately the audience should feel curious about who this boy is. The slow reveal builds up tension of the introduction of the character and makes the audience more curious about his character.

The should also think about, of the three girls, who will win the competition, and the love of the new boy. But more importantly they will also be thinking whether or not fighting for the love of the new boy will destroy the relationship between the three girls.

Overall our opening is very clear as it introduces all of the characters and their relationship between each other, as well as establishing genre and setting.

3 Important Things Included
The master shot at the beginning immediately introduces the setting and character to the audience.

The slow reveal builds up tension within the audience as well as making them more curious of who this character is. It also shows the importance that he will have throughout the film.

The close ups give more depth to the characters and give the audience a quick but clear idea of each of their personalities.

Effectiveness
I feel that our opening was very effective. We establishes the teen rom-com genre well through a number of methods, namely through the comedy created by the reactions of the three girls, the vibrant colours and the college style titles.

We also introduced the characters well. They all had very stereotypical costumes which allowed the audience to see exactly who they were. Also the individual close ups of the girls and the slow reveal of the boy gave more of an insight into each character and highlighted their importance.

Finally, we established the setting well. We began with a master shot in which you could see a corridor full of lockers, which clearly showed a high school or college.

With more time and a larger cast we could have improved the opening sequence by having a corridor full of students to create a more realistic scene.