How does the director of "Blair Witch Project" and the director of "What Lies Beneath" engage their audiences in the opening ten minutes?
The director of "Blair Witch Project" has a very unusual way of engaging his audience in the first ten minutes. His main characters are 16-18 year old high-school students and they are making a documentary for a school project which supposedly did actually take place. The students are shown laughing about and having a good time. By showing them looking happy, the director strongly creates the impression that they are almost setting themselves up for something unexpected to happen to them. The way he does this is very effective, and makes you ask the question "what exactly is going to happen?" As well as the group messing about and shopping for their camping supplies,(for the trip to the woods where the main part of the documentary takes place) there is a cross cut to an eerie graveyard, the main presenter of the documentary is stood in the middle of it, she explains a story about how people died near the graveyard, but is not very graphic about it. I think the director put this short scene into the opening was to strengthen the viewer's impression that the documentary really did take place.
The director of "What Lies Beneath" uses a more usual way to engage his audience in the opening 10 minutes, most of the focus is on the main character, and she is acting very strangely; at the very start of the film, it shows her face underwater, then the camera zooms out and you see her sit up in the bath with a start, like one would if they awoke from a nightmare. You just think "strange". However, if u watch very closely, for just a split-second before it shows her face underwater, you can see a shot ...
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The director of "What Lies Beneath" uses a more usual way to engage his audience in the opening 10 minutes, most of the focus is on the main character, and she is acting very strangely; at the very start of the film, it shows her face underwater, then the camera zooms out and you see her sit up in the bath with a start, like one would if they awoke from a nightmare. You just think "strange". However, if u watch very closely, for just a split-second before it shows her face underwater, you can see a shot of her looking almost dead, the water in this split-second is a very cold blue/grey, providing you don't miss subtlety, the director has left you asking questions in the first ten seconds of his film. Following this, she gets out of the bath and goes to stand in front of the mirror, but it is too steamed up to see anything, so she pulls out the hairdryer and begins to blow it over the mirror in very, very slow circular motions. She has an almost unconscious look on her face while she does this, you can tell at this point that she is not an average young American woman!
Both of the films rely upon very good use of presentational devices to engage their audiences. In Blair Witch Project, the use of camera is extremely important. All the filming was done by the students themselves, to create the illusion that it really did happen and really was real. It Is therefore always very unprofessional, i.e it is always very shaky and often not focusing properly, the director also had the clever idea of making much of the filming in black and white, creating a slightly creepy atmosphere, and setting up well for a theme of the unexpected throughout the film.
On the presentational front, "What Lies Beneath is very similar in comparison to "Blair Witch Project". It also relies on clever use of the camera, e.g the scene at the very start where she is in the bath (where you see the birds eye shot that shows her looking very strange) Also, throughout the first ten minutes, every time the main character is on the screen, we see her very close-up, whereas almost all other shots are medium or long. In my opinion, the director has done this on purpose to tell the viewer subtly, that she is different to other people in the film.
Another link is that "What Lies Beneath" uses lighting effectively to help create a theme of the unexpected, as does "Blair Witch Project". "What Lies Beneath" does it by using very cold colours, clothes and scenery when the main character is there, and also by putting her in the shadows when everybody else on set is in the bright sun shine. As mentioned earlier, the director of "Blair Witch Project" does it by using black and white camera, with graveyard scenes done in black and white as well.
In my opinion, although they are both effective, I think that "Blair Witch Project" has a stronger, more intriguing opening than "What Lies Beneath" I think this because the opening of it really made me want to carry on watching and see what happened, and I think this is the most important aspect of a good opening. The idea of making the film as though it really happened was very clever and engaging to the audience. It is a slightly more effective way of opening the film, I think that in "What Lies Beneath" there is too much too early, and it comes on a bit strong, there is perhaps a little too many strange things happening at an early stage of the film.
