Diving into the (Inspirational) world of Neo-Noir Movies + Openings

Opening Scenes

After spending a couple of minutes (Hours?) trying to choose some opening sequences that embody the Neo-Noir genre.

But first, what makes a good film opening?
-leads to a singular goal, gives the viewer a promise that something will happen, creates anticipation, there is a strong theme present, it creates a strong connection with a character, it makes the viewer care
-Unifying theory of 2+2 - Make the audience put the pieces together instead of giving them the 4.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)

Opening Scene of The Place Beyond the Pines

https://nyti.ms/2piu2TE - This is a clip of a voice-over of the director telling anecdotes about the scene while it's playing (Shout out to The New York Times)

The opening of this movie perfectly embodies all of the elements of a neo-classical film. From the camera shots to the mise-en-scene elements, it's all there. The opening relies on a long tracking shot (more than three minutes) of the character walking through what it looks like a carnival and ultimately performing a stunt in a motorcycle. The sequence happens in night time and there are really bright lights that are used to create that characteristic chiaroscuro element to highlight the contrast of light and dark. 

Even though the character that is being followed by the camera is surrounded by a lot of people, the tonality of the scene create a lonesome and almost melancholic feeling. Diegetic sound is used for carnival rights and the voices of the crowd surrounding the character.

All of these elements paired together hint to the fact that main character most likely does not feel comfortable in his environment.

Sin City (2005)

Sin City Opening Scene

This opening scene is more stylized than the first one but it still shows conventions that are typical of a Neo-Noir movie. The scene basically shows a woman and a man talking on the rooftop of a building and it ends with the man (Spoiler?) killing the woman with a gun. I think that the betrayal theme of the movie is already established by this point, this scene also shows a strong contrast between shadows and lights and towards the end it begins to rain (Obscured settings). Unlike the opening above, this scene does have cuts and it is not tracking any character but instead it relies on close ups of the faces of the characters.

Some of the stylistic features of this scene is the shot showing the figures in 2-D and the fact that the background looks like something you would find in a superhero comic. I liked the use of color against the black and white to highlight some of the characteristics of the female character like sensuality. 

I picked these two openings because they show that even though they fall under the same genre, they are completely different. I'm using this as motivation for the opening scene that I'm going to create in the following weeks because It is evident that I have options, I can create pretty much whatever I want as long as it follows the characteristics of the genre and I can afford to produce it -I'm working with a limited budget $$ you know- 

I feel great now, I feel that I have creative freedom for this project... Lets hope that I'm still as optimistic next week.