Conventions Of Film Openings

At the introduction of a film opening as a viewer we tend to see:

• Title sequence and credits
• The introduction to the main characters
• The introduction of the setting and the location
• The production and distribution idents (identities)
• The introduction to the start of the narrative, through this we get a senses of the storyline.
• The introduction gives us a sense of the pace of the film and what the mood and tone will be like later. 
• It sets up the genre
• Music is used to set the mood

In a classic opening, for example in Psycho (1960); we tend to see:

• A city scape
• The camera zooms into a building
• The camera zooms into a window
• The camera zooms into a room
• The camera zooms into the characters