The Little Vampire opening two minutes

In the opening two minutes of The Little Vampire you can tell that the genre is a family fantasy with comedy and adventure. The title of the film gives a hint about the genre as 'Little' suggests that it is aimed at families and young children, the word 'Vampire' shows that it is a fantasy. The target audience is young children because they love vampires and so they will want to watch the film. The opening scene is a pan shot of the moon, whilst the credits come on screen. They then use an establishing shot to show the strange object that(who we think) the main vampire is holding. A beam of light shoots down and connects with the object this suggests that it is a powerful source and will have some significance throughout the film. After that it rushes into action with him being knocked over and everyone panicking, because the lighting is dark, as it is night time it is harder to tell what is happening. The action for me was too rapid and the shots were moving so fast that i could not focus on one thing. However this leaves the audience asking questions such as ' What is the object, why is it important' and 'who is the main character. For me the opening two minutes of this film has no effect on the audience, as it does not follow the rules for an opening sequence. It is too confusing as the action happens to fast and nobody knows who the main character is and what significance the child in the bed hasm, who is floating in the sea. This is a bad opening two minutes as all you can understand is the genre from the title, the target audience will be left confused and won't know whether to continue watching.

Rules of openings:

• The audience should be intrigued to continue watching the film and they should have a rough understanding of who the main character is whether it is a camera shot of him or something he says. They should not be left with so many unanswered questions because it is a childrens film they should be able to relate to the main character but if they dont know who he is straight away they will switch off.


• The film needs to have a simple understanding from the opening that will lay out the rest of the film, this is to help the audience not get confused and bored. The Little Vampire does not do this because things are happening everywhere and all at once the children will lose interest straight away as they do not understand. When we watched the opening two minutes as a class none of us understood what was going on so a young child will find it very hard to carry on watching.

The camera shot of the horses running through the mist is a fantastic shot because it adds atmosphere to the film, it is the slowest action part in the two minutes which is ironic. It uses a low angle shot to show that the horses are powerful and the mist makes you feel cold because it is similar to the coldness in the vampires.

Vanhelsing is another vampire film, but it is aimed at an older audience so the costumes and language can be more complex and detailed. Compared to The Little Vampire where the costumes have to be simple so that the audience can tell what they are, also the language has to be clear for the young children to understand. Also in Vanhelsing you immediatly find out who the main character is and what he is, compared to the other film where you get a vague image of the character but you are not certain that he is the main one. The only similarity they have is that they are based on fantasy to attract the audience as they all love vampires and so this will get them hooked. However The Little Vampire does not get you hooked in the first two minutes.