KM - Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999) Practice Evaluation Task

Budget - $63m

Box Office Gross - Worldwide - $108m

IMDB Rating - 8.8/10

For practice for the evaluation question detailing what our group has done in regards to using, as well as challenging conventions of film openings, not specific to genre, I have analysed a film (Fight Club) which is a different genre from our coursework film (Zombie).

Production company ident

The company idents first appeared on screen starting with the Distribution Company - 20th Century Fox, followed by the Production company - Regency Enterprises, the titles then start with a secondary production company "A Linson Films Production", the Director (David Fincher), then the three main actors of the film (Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter) before displaying the film title "Fight Club". This is a standard convention for film format.

Title- Director

The titles continue, naming the lesser known actors, as well as the music composers, film editors etc. the titles then transition into the opening scene, in the form of the camera panning backwards over the top of a gun after the last title has been displayed. This is similar to the feature that appears in a lot of Romantic Comedys, where the titles are in the diagetic world, however in this case, the titles aren't directly diagetic, but transition into the first scene.

A convention of normal film format is challenged here, as the first few shots don't contain a long, or extreme long establishing shot, which is commonly used in film. Another convention is also challenged through the fact that no non-diagetic is used over the opening scene, only dialogue from the two characters, as well as the narrators thoughts being heard aloud.