The purpose of an opening sequence is for it to establish the mood and visual character of a film. It is also used to introduce the viewer to all or some of the following elements, which are; Characters, locations, Narrative, Plot, Themes and Visual style.
The opening sequence is a personal thing but when a film grabs your attention from the opening frame it knocks you out of your seat or even grinds you into it, you tend to remember it fondly, even if the rest of it fails to measure up. It has to be said that this is something modern American movies tend to do very well; in general, most blockbuster Hollywood films result in a loud and witless bang. By watching the opening scene, the TV audience has a taste of things to come for the short attention span generation, reassurance that the upcoming ten minutes of talk and character introduction will eventually be replaced by more of the visual shouting of the first scene.
On the other hand in other films, you might find an enigma in the opening sequence. This gives the audience a feeling of uncertainty and as the film carries on to develop slowly but surely, the enigma is being established. An example of this would be in London to Brighton. London to Brighton's opening sequence is non-linear and as a result of this we as the audience don't realise what's happening. We see a middle aged women and a young child looking like they have been beaten however due to it being the beginning of the film we as an audience don't know how that has happened and so we are intrigued to find out what was the cause of it.
All in all the purpose of an opening sequence is to introduce you to what the film is going to be about. Different directors choose to plan out their opening sequence differently however if the opening sequence has made a significant impact on the majority of the audience and the audience are excited and thrilled about what else is going to happen, then the director knows he has completed his first mission of drawing in the audience.
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