coursework - What do we expect to see in the opening 2 minutes of a feature film? Existing student-made film openings

What do we expect to see in the opening two minutes of a feature film? Existing student-made film openings 

Whilst researching film openings, we carried on looking at feature films that were student made perhaps more achievable. We continue to look at the tick boxes which we consider to create an excellent film opening. This includes: what the audience expects to see, camera shots and angles, and openings made by Robert Zebecks and other professionals, its hard not to have high expectations for these student-made films, as the experts made it look so easy. 

Here's three student-made feature film openings:

Captive: Captive 

Captive shows a man held hostage who looks as if he has been tortured or beaten violently. During this opening we are not given any dialogue however we are given a spooky/haunting music which makes the audience believe something horrific has happened to the man. The camera angles within this opening are varied as there is a CCTV camera styled shots throughout the opening. There are credits appearing throughout the opening in a jumbled way, this may suggest they are trying to hide something during the film, therefore portrayed it through who they presented the credits. I understand that the audience will expect to see a horror/thriller genre of film as there is a lot of gory details within the camera shots. We see that the captive is alive, tied up and disorientated but the audience, are unsure whether he's a good person or bad, whether he knows why he's there or not etc. The shots seeing CCTV cameras ad then the screen spilt into four to see the different angles of the CCTV cameras within the building enhances the seperation  and captured environment by implying that someone could be watching the building. it produces questions of who is keeping him here and why are they keeping him tied up. The titles appear flickering and jumbled, not saying long on the screen, fitting in with the scenes and in style with the secretive atmosphere. 


Exiled: 

i think for this film opening, the students really focused on the settings and the characters, with the plot having good potential with simple and fitting dialogue. it's most likely that the setting around them was their normal surroundings in and the students used it very creatively in the story. I personally really admire the costumes and props, as it was simples fit with the time period/fantasy storyline. The editing was well executed with the dragon looking very realistic. The titles, also, were well timed and fit with the whole story. The audience, i think, can assume a vague idea of what will happen in the rest of the film, and therefore i think that this makes for a really well put together film opening. 

Carnage:

'Caring' we are introduced to a brief plot and we assume the main character is the man who is hunting people down, but we don't know that so its only our assumption. There is no dialogue in this piece of film which makes it for an effective opening. There are several shots of a location but i would assume they are all filmed within one location. The credits flash on a black screen to fit in with the dull dark colours of the background shots, and together sets up the audience for what we assume to be a dark atmospheric film, All of these factors add to the rise-en-scene of the film. 

LR