Color Me Impressed

         Although originality is crucial in the film industry, I believe its important to implement elements of existing films into current ones. I strive to take advantage of professionals' expertise by incorporating fragments of preexisting films' editing and composition techniques into my opening. Widely successful blockbusters I wish to reflect include Fight Club (David Fincher 1999), Memento (Christopher Nolan 2000), Girl, Interrupted (James Mangold 1999), Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry 2004), and Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis 1994). Not only do all of these have an opening in common, being that they all begin at the end of the movie, but they also use suspense and confusion as a main plot development tool. 

             For example, an eerie narration resides over the opening of Girl, Interrupted (James Mangold 1999) while an emotionless protagonist sits on the floor, distraught and bloody. This results in the audience being completely clueless as to what event caused the main character to be covered in blood. Of course all of the audience's questions aren't going to be answered in the first two minutes of a film, but the most intriguing of movies have openings that refrain from disclosing any sort of information and give the audience the satisfaction of figuring out the plot later on. An audience wouldn't want to see a completely predictable movie because they would want to use their minds to put the pieces together themselves. 

          I don't want to extract themes or exact scenes from any of the above movies; I want to focus on specifically what editing techniques provoke wonder and emotion in the audience and incorporate those into my opening. Girl, Interrupted (James Mangold 1999), Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry 2004), and Fight Club (David Fincher 1999) all possess similar color schemes that reflect the overall mood of the film. 

Girl, Interrupted (1999) ©Columbia Pictures

Fight Club (1999) ©20th Century Fox

Eternal Sunshine of The
Spotless Mind (2004) ©Focus Features

          The lack of heavy saturation and the presence of cold, subdued, and bleak colors exists in these three feature films to represent the distressing plots that they compose of. Even though the character shown on the far right in Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind (2004) is wearing bright orange, the color seems to be desaturated and dull. The significance of the color properties to the plot in these movies has made me realize how important it is to recognize that in my opening as well.


Resources:
"Fight Club (1999) 20th Century Fox." Cynobs, cynobs.com/2014/06/05/ 

          5-movies-that-show-the-harsh-realities-of-office-life/.
"Girl, Interrupted (1999) Columbia Pictures." Eidetic Traces,

          eidetictraces.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/ 

          girl-interrupted-the-film-not-the-book/.
"Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind (2004) Focus Features." Mental Floss,

          mentalfloss.com/article/ 

          67681/15-unforgettable-facts-about-eternal-sunshine-spotless-mind.
Siddique, Ab. "Movies that Begin with the Ending." IMDb, 1 Jan. 2014, www.imdb.com/list/ 

          ls054814617/. Accessed 19 Mar. 2017.