Dialogue:

(JN)

What is dialogue?

Dialogue is a conversation between two or more people as a feature of a book, play, or film.

Is dialogue necessary in the opening 2 minutes of a feature film?

No, dialogue is not always necessarily needed in the opening two minutes of a feature film. For some films words and conversation are not needed because maybe they do not want to give away too much of the plot so it makes people try to read into it more and use their imagination. Other films do use dialogue in the opening two minutes because they want to maybe say something that will get the viewers hooked early on so that they want to watch more. 

Find one example for each of the following genres where dialogue is NOT used and one example for each where it IS used in the opening two minutes.

•  Action- There is dialogue in the opening two minutes of suicide squad.

There is no dialogue in the opening scene of Ghost in the Shell

• Horror- There isn't any dialogue in the opening two minutes of The Woman in Black.

 

There is dialogue in The Blair Witch Project opening scene

• Comedy- there is no dialogue in the film opening of Devil Wears Prada.

There is dialogue in the opening scene of Finding Nemo

• Drama- there is dialogue in the opening scene of Inferno.

There is not dialogue in the opening scene of The Revenant.

• Romance- There is no dialogue in the opening scene of The Notebook

There is dialogue in the opening scene of Love Actually.

What are the positive effects of dialogue in the example you have used? And what are the negatives?

The positive effects of dialogue in the examples I used are that it advances the story and develops the characters so we begin to see in the first few minutes what will follow in the next couple of hours of the film. In the opening two minutes of love actually it gives us an insight to the character's feelings towards love so we are able to tell that that's what the film is going to be about. The negatives of having dialogue in these film openings is that some people say that it gives away too much of what's going to happen and they don't want that to be revealed that early on. It often does this by foreboding for example in the opening of  Finding Nemo we see who we think are going to be the main two characters talking about how much they love their new home and neighbourhood which leads us to assume that something bad is going to happen. 

What are the positive effects of no-dialogue in the examples you have used? And what are the negatives?

The positive effects of no dialogue in the examples I used are that it doesn't give too much of the plot to give anything away but it gives enough to get the viewers hooked. There isn't any dialogue in the opening two minutes of women in black and this creates an eerie feeling in the film which enables us to tell that its a horror film and it is going to be scary. There is also no dialogue in the opening sequence of The Notebook and it gives us the feeling that the film is going to be emotional and this makes viewers want us to watch more.

What issues do you think you would face in your own coursework by not using dialogue?

The issues that we might face in our own coursework if we did not use dialogue is that we would not be able to convey to our audience what our film plot is going to be about. This might result in our audience not being able to engage with the film and our characters and they might not want to watch more.

What issues do you think you would face in your own coursework by using dialogue?

The issues which we might face in our own coursework if we did use dialogue is that we might make it boring for the audience. The dialogue might come across as awkward and slightly forced if we cant get proper actors to be in our film opening. We want our film to look professional and sometimes when there is dialogue in the student film openings which we have seen it looks cliché and fake. We want to avoid this so it may be easier for us to avoid using too much dialogue.