Within the opening title sequence of Grease, you can establish the genre after watching the funky, 50’s style animation, introducing characters and the main roles behind the production of it. The use of soundtrack is upbeat and positive and suggests it’s a musical, the ‘as’ in the titles also reminds you you’re watching a movie, that actors are playing characters. The song actually has the word ‘grease’ in it which ,again, fits the musical theme.Within the first minute you can guess there will be some romance as the male and female leads are introduced first.
The tone of this opening is fun and energetic. It has a colourful style of animation, the over exaggerated character drawings, for example, (his chin and his crazy hair) adds a comedic tone as well telling us it's likely to be a light hearted movie.
We can guess it’s set in the 1950’s due to iconic history events and people such as; Elvis Presly, Maroline Monroe and James Dean on a poster. The clothing (although animated) is very 1950s style and there are quick snippets of jukeboxes and old fashioned cars which also tell us it's the 1950s. We can guess that cars will feature or have some importance in the film as they appear quite frequently in the sequence. They cleverly display the opening credits on the billboards in the street and beside it they have old fashioned movie adverts and old looking buildings.
It’s definitely set in America from the American accent on the radio at the beginning to the American celebrities. There are other factors that give this away like wearing their own clothes to school (no uniform) and the American flag colours that roll by in the montage. For most of the characters it starts in their bedrooms, decorated with their high schools’ logo, celebrities, the ‘pink ladies’. The location then fades from an animated picture of their High School to the actual school where it takes place. The use of fade adds importance to the high school as it’s where we can imagine most of the film will take place.
Based off of the title sequence we can guess the following will be included in the narrative:
Highschool
Teenagers
The beginning suggests romance between the juxtaposed male and female leads
Groups/ gangs/ cliques
Maybe some conflict in their differences
An element of rebellion
Differences in gender ‘Pink Ladies’ and the ‘Thunderbirds’
Danny- we can imagine he is the group leader. He seems lazy, messy, vain, rebellious. We know he’s the main character as it starts with him, he even presents the word “Grease”.
Sandy- she seems very feminine, wealthy, kind, beautiful, slightly naive. I’d say they have incorporated Laura Mulvey’s ‘male gaze’ due to the see through nightgown and getting out of bed looking perfectly made up. There is a ‘disney princess’ vibe to her as she has birds and animals helping her get ready.
The rest of the characters are mentioned but with slightly less importance as they don't have as much screen time.
In contrast, the American Horror Story opening scene is completely different. From just the title we can already establish the horror genre. The quick cuts make us feel very uneasy, especially accompanied by the discordant soundtrack and sound effects making us uncomfortable
There is a lot of darkness within the opening. Showing us glimpses of shadows lurking, iconic horror imagery like; skulls, blood, knifes, creepy old fashioned photos. There is an eary tone and with such short duration on each picture it keeps the audience engaged while revealing possible narrative hints. There is a common theme of children/babies which is seen as innocent and sweet but turned sinister due to how they’re presented (one of the pictures put in a X-ray font). In comparison to Grease there is no happiness and fun, only fear and darkness.
It tells us little about the time period. It could be either modern or old, a sort of ‘past and present’ theme. There are references to black and white photos but that doesn’t specify when we are. We could guess it is nighttime due to lack of daylight.
The location looks like a basement or cellar in an old house. It’s also likely set in America given the title. It doesn't tell us much about the narrative but there are certain hints of characters and potential mystery. We can imagine there’s a killer or psychopath who’s curated the disturbing objects in the room. The specimen jars give us an element of science or experiment however,the baby in it is horrifying. In the opening there is a POV shot with a flashlight as if someone has found the room and is searching for something or someone. It makes us worried for this unknown/ unshown character who is now possibly vulnerable to the killer, we assume. We see a white dress falling - is that metaphorical? Symbolising a girls death? It’s typical of the horror movie genre to victimise women or little girls but clarifies that we’re watching this to be scared. There are subtle hints at the narrative and character such as murderers but it's done too quickly to notice. From this title sequence we are wondering what has happened, who has done it? And why?
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