Film Openings Research - Part 4

The next film I have chosen as part of my research is The Wizard of Oz by Mervyn LeRoy (1939), which I have chosen to use as my other less detailed analysis'. I have chosen this film as it is an older film and is therefore very different to the other films I have analysed which makes it interesting to see the differences and developments in film in the past 100 years.

 

Mise-en-scene:

• Old fashioned colour of film background as at the time they didn't have a large range of special effects back in the 1930's, with the first colour film only being made in 1902 and the war taking place, these factors held up the progression of film making.

• Reddy-brown clouds float continuously in background behind text
• Text is in white and font is New Times Roman which is an old-fashioned looking font and therefore signifies the era that the film was produced in and gives the viewer an authentic feeling.

• After main credits, they introduce a dedication page which is something seen as normality in older films but not in more recent ones. This again gives the audience an authentic feeling towards the film, and also suggests that the film is appealing to all ages and is timeless and it had been running for nearly 40 years and was still popular enough to turn it into a film.

Camera shots:

• Only one camera shot showing the same background image and entire frame throughout (unlike more developed films now).

Editing:

• All edits are continuous fades between text.

Sound:

• Diegetic: 
• Sound of the lion roaring at the very beginning of the opening, when showing the studio trademark, as you could see it doing so within the frame.

• Non-diegetic: 
• The rest of the sound was non-diegetic, which couldn't be seen in the frame, and this was background music without lyrics, which was a mixture of the songs within the film including Ding Dong the Witch is Dead and Somewhere over the Rainbow. 
• The songs faded into each other subtly to produce one long lasting sound with no pauses.
• All old-fashioned style of music which would have been up to date at the time of production.

Opening credits order:

The film does not use the common opening credit order, which may be to do with the fact that is in an old film and at the time, that may have been the common order. The order they used was:

1. Name of studio
2. Film title
3. Name of production company
4. Featuring
5. Music
6. Producer name

Representation:

Within the opening of The Wizard of Oz, nothing to do with the plot is shown, not even within the background or sound, which makes it hard to find a representation for the film or any characters. 


Genre:

The genre of the Wizard of Oz is musical fantasy, which can partly be identified in the opening credits by the large array of different music that is played, which is all up beat, but due to there not being any hint to what the film is about in the opening credits, you cannot tell from the opening two minutes that the film is fantasy. 
There are not many special effect used in the opening credits as it is an old film and these were not recognised then, although they do use fades.


Ideology:

There is no evidence of ideology in the opening, which is why I wanted study this film, or in particular the time in which it was produced. The film industry has come on leaps and bounds from 1939 when this film was filmed, compared to now, in 2014. The camera shots within opening credits have developed majorly since then, and now include from long shots, to high angle shots to close ups and include characters, not just titles and credits with a basic background.