First Ten Minutes of Blair Witch Project and What Lies Beneath

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First Ten Minutes of Blair Witch Project and What Lies Beneath

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

underwa...

... middle of paper ...

...hine. 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.

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