The Watching Documentary Questions

1- What does Thomas Sutcliffe mean when he says "Film need to seduce their audience into long term commitment. While there are many types of seduction, the temptation to go for instant arousal is almost irresistible"?

I believe that Thomas Sutcliffe is trying to say that films need to seduce their audience from the very beginning of the film till the very end , but that the very beginning needs to grab the audience attention otherwise there is a chance of them not liking the film . The beninning needs to be seductive to a point of intriguing the audience into being hooked and then slowly throughout the film the seduction levels increase and the film gets more exciting till the end arrives . I agree that it's very important for the opening of a film to be strong and hooking as it sets of the film .

2-Acording to Director Jean Jacques Beineix , what are the risks of 'instant arousal'? 

 The risks of 'instant arousal' is that if the beginning is both gripping and strong it would be hard to maintain that for the rest of the film or build up the strength .

3- Explain why "a good beginning must make the audience feel that it doesn't know nearly enough yet, and at the same time make sure that it doesn't know to little"? 

The reason why a good beginning must make the audience feel that it doesn't know nearly enough yet is because that way they will want to carry on watching the film to find out the rest , it's a good technique to use to hook the audience into wanting more . If a film beginning were to give very little away then it would probably result in the audience loosing intrest and feeling unsatisfied.

4-What does critic Stanley Kauffmann describe as the classic opening ? Why does this work ?

Stanley Kauffmann would describe the classic opening to start with an establishing shot of new york city , usually seen from the east . After there would be a close up of a building,  the camera would go up a building to a window , then it would go in the window , then it went past the receptionist desk to the private office. The reason why this classic process worked is because through this method you were told where the film was taking place , what the ocupation of the hero is and most importanatly you were told the organisation of the world .

5-Why is Kyle Cooper's title sequence to the film Seven so effective ?

The reason why it's so effective is because the title sequence has essitianlly become the first scene in the sense that it's creating an atmosphere and a tone for the rest of the film .Along with the music and relativily dark background the audience knows for sure that they've come to watch a thriller .We also find out what we think is the main characters obsession (needles) and with that it already get's our minds racing and imagining what might happen.Long story short , by mixing the titles with  images it hooks the audience in a way that's genius,  we as audience members can already guess that this title sequence is foreshadowing some of what might happen in the film . And for us , it's exciting .

6- What did Orson Welles want to achieve with his opening to the film A Touch of Evil ? What did Universal studios do to it? Why? 

Orson wanted to make his title sequence different and original to other title sequences in a way that involved using no music and adding no credits.He wanted the opening to be strong and he thought with music and the credits it wouldn't give of the effect he wanted to achieve. However Universal studios didn't agree with his method so they created their own version which included score and title credits and used it instead of Orson's unique take which in essence lost the effect Orson envisaged.

7- What is meant by "a favourite trick of film Noir"? What is the trick ?

An example of "a favourite trick of film Noir" is the film Casino. The trick is that the beginning scene is actually the ending , after watching the trick the audience wants to know what lead those characters to the pridicament they found themselves in . In the film 'Casino' it starts of by showing a man walking to his car , we can hear a narrator who is meant to be the charatcers voice speaking with confidence about trust. However when he get's in his car he is blown up , as soon as the explostion happens the audience is left with many questions such as : Why was he blown up ? is he a bad person ? who did this to him ?

8- How does the opening to the film 'The Shining' create suspense?

The opening to the film 'The Shining' creates suspense due to the camera , at first we get this beautiful scenery then the camera starts focusing after this small object in a  predator form  from behind  , we can tell it's a car . While all this is happening with the camera we can also hear music that builds to the tension and suspense we are feeling when looking at the scene , eventually we realise that the car is going in the wrong direction which can only mean one thing , trouble .