It Only Takes a Few: Hooking the Audience

I am a cinemaphile at heart, and as such I do take my time to understand what goes into making a successful piece of film or animation. Here we'll be covering arguably the most crucial: The opening sequence. Chances are, the majority of your favorite movies have a strong, memorable beginning that really pulls you in and exposes you to the world on screen. The best movies are able to do this in a matter of seconds, and those first seconds are important in determining if an audience will get right into what they're watching, or lose interest over time and even stop watching.

-Preaching to the choir. Your production is gonna be aimed at some group of people, and no matter what that group is, you will always have to have elements that will specifically entertain them. This applies just as much to multi-aged audiences. Do you have sophisticated and thought provoking dialogue, comedic characters, or an intoxicating world? Well hold up now, because you still have to make sure your interpretation of anything you make has its own identity and personality. Star Trek and Star Wars are of the same genre and have similar ideas in many aspects, but they've both got their own unique characters and interactions, and situations to roll with. Don't fall into a pit of clones over an already well known and "superior" film.

-Look for the connection. People like relatable material and stories that can reflect some piece of their life, so make sure to get them invested in that as soon as you can. If you wait too long and just stick with focusing on secondary issues or unimportant events in your animation, you've just about lost whatever link you had. You need to expose a bit at first to give the audience a big enough taste to sit the rest of the time.

-Be unpredictable. The more you do that isn't expected is usually for the better. The best visual gags tend to be something that an audience would never see coming, and plot twists are extremely useful in the event of a drying continuation.

The deal with animation compared to tradition filmmaking is the fact that you have far more flexibility in what you can do with characters and environment. Because of that, I feel one needs to be most aware of the smallest details in making an animated feature, even more so that a real world piece.

Catering to your audience doesn't mean bending to their will. Remember, what you make is still yours. What happens is up to you and what you are happy with is what really matters. It's very important to have appealing features that many can enjoy, but your audience should not dictate your choices.

What caused us to focus more on these important movie elements in animation anyway?