Opening Sequences of Comedy Films

Pineapple Express
A comedy film about "stoners". The opening is unique, as it is a flashback and is a take on why marujuana is illegal. The whole scene is in black and white, which indicates it's in the past. Although it doesn't give off a comedic atmosphere at first, the dialogue and expressions the characters make solidify the genre to the audience.
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Step Brothers

A comedy about 2 adults who become Step Brothers. (embedding disabled)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sczh_KjjFNU

The opening is upbeat and shows both the main characters, it also uses time jumps, which indicates that it's moving fast which would be how the main characters would feel as their parents suddenly hook up. It also shows the main characters doing ridiculous things which gives the audience an idea on what they're like.

Monty Python's The Life of Brian

An old british comedy film which tells the story about a young jewish man who is born on the same day and next door to Jesus Christ, and is then mistaken as the messiah.
The film starts with dramatic music, often seen in films about epics and sees 3 men crossing the desert on camels. The characters and dialogue used however, are what makes it a comedy. As many people know about how the 3 wise men came when Christ was born, however the dialogue and the fact that it isn't actually Jesus himself is what makes it funny.

Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task

Initial idea

Genre
When deciding what genre of film we were going to do for our main task we thought it would be a good idea to do a genre that we enjoy watching. We came up with the idea of doing a comedy. When discussing this with our tutor he basically said that it would be difficult to do a comedy because it is hard to make people laugh. As a group we feel confident that we can make a two minute opening that includes some humour so we have decided to continue with the idea of doing a comedy. After watching a few opening scenes to comedy films, it has reassured us that we can do a comedy.
Storyline
We have a vague idea of what the storyline of the film is going to be. This is that a young boy called Jim Phillips, who doesn't do anything with his life apart from go out and get drunk. He has a younger brother called Craig who goes to college and is expected to do well and move on to bigger and better things.
Their family receives a share of a family members will who has just passed away. This family member though, was a millionaire.
The film is all about how Jim wastes a fair share of his money on cars, booze, drugs etc. He comes to realise that wasting his money on these sorts of things is unfulfilling, this changes his lifestyle massively. He then goes into doing charity work, helping the unfortunate and becoming a better person.
2 Minute opening
Jim has been out the night before and is laid in his bed surrounded by beer cans, takeaways, empty bottles etc. He gets woken by his younger brother, Craig, playing music. He stumbles down the stairs with his duvet. He gets laid down on the sofa downstairs and puts the television on. His younger brother comes in to the room and has a conversation with him and then leaves the house. This is when Jim receives a phone call from a family member who tells him that his Uncle Norman has died and left their family with 15 million pound.
This is only our first idea and is likely to change throughout the project. Here are a few opening sequences that we have looked at for inspiration.