The Art of the Title sequence

This the title sequence of Edward Sissor hands

The title sequence includes the actual title, the stars of the film, the person who created the cast, production designer, the person who created the screenplay and the director. 

Looking at the title sequence it uses Serif fonts, which suggests an olden day theme, or even something that's part of the film is left behind in the old days and everything else has moved on. Also the colour of the font is all white, shows a kind of dullness and matches the snow that's falling in the background.

The images behind the titles are kind of suggestions of what the story may hold, and also what kind  of atmosphere it might be in. Also the colour of the images, are like a white and blue, they are like cold colours, so it kind of suggests that its not going to be such a "la-di-da" kind of film. The images consists of scissors, different shapes biscuts, an old man, and a sort of robot body. Not such lovely pictures.

Its got like close ups of the images.

What makes it appealing to me is the simple style of the font and simple everyday objects being magnified as something weird.

Filming and editing

From the previous lesson, we had done a plan of a short clip using jelly babies, and we were also told that with the following lesson we would really act out what we had planned. However the plan that we did was too difficult to act out and so we decided to plot a different story line.

I ended up coming in late, and my group had to start without me, and so they shooted scenes that i had no part in, but after I came in we started filming the scenes where I had a part in. After filming those scenes, we had an hour to edit them. Then we were told that in the next lesson we would be able to put in a music track.

The opening structure

There different openings in different films however there all fit different categorize of opening structure.

• A narrative opening- Which is used commonly known is when a film goes straight to the film no black background it goes straight into the first scene. It would start to get to know the location of where the film sets and the characters that are included in the film and the setting. 

• A discrete title sequence- is when the opening has nothing to do with the narrative the plot but its in the same theme of the film. They are mostly full of edits throughout the sequence.
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• CREDITS OVER BLANK SCREEN- This is more basic to do as it all it is a blank screen that start with title rolling its often has a soundtrack or sound effects.
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• STYLISED EDITING-  These are not easy to do as they take a lot of time to make in post production. They are heavily edited and amazing to see.
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Fonts

Fonts drag the consumer attention to go seeing the movie in cinema or buying a DVD. Fonts are used in different ways for example most modern is 3D texts that stands out.



 The crazy imitation of earth and its colourful 3D fonts is eye catching makes you feel you want to watch and it interests you.
However, BOLD titles have been going strong for years attracting different types of audiences. Famous titles like rocky have attracted a lot of attention.

  There are also different types of fonts which are:

1. Serif Font- traditional, more formal. A serif is the extra little detail at the end of each stroke of every letter.
2. Sans Serif Fonts- modern, informal, 'friendly'. Without extra details.

Audeince

To make a successful film the first thing we have to think about is whos going to watch it who would be the audeince. Every film has its significant range of ages or even gender to decide what kind of film or what type of genre. We have to think about what age and this can be seen in our mise en scene or music but the story its self would determine what range of age group that is acceptable.

Gender in some cases is used to who would watch what film however stereotype could also be involved in some peoples opinion. As you can see here females mostly go for romance weres males weould recomend sci fi movies.

 Age rating systems labels are shown each movie to suggest any restriction to minors. Each country has it own age rating systems.

Intertexuality

Intertexuality means that a similarity in certain films. There are scenarios or aspects seen in one film than another. This would bring a highlight to the film and most of the time its the "best bits". Things like music (sound) or the camera angles or the mise en scene these would be seen on other films that were successful. Films like Psycho which that was directed by Alfred Hitchcock were later seen in other movie but they weren't entirely the same but there was things that were related.

Like what lies beneath uses the same sense of filing when the actor Carry's a female actor in to a bath which the film was created in 2000 the film psycho in 1960. 

Also, the stepfather which was released recent as 2009 and it had the exact idea of went the stepfather chases the widow around the house into the bathroom which he smashes the door open and she stabbed him in the neck he then slips and falls into the bath creating the scene from psycho.

The Art of the TITLE SEQUENCE (font analysis)

click to enlarge

The sequence uses sans serif font, the writing is in bold, orange colour to link to Halloween. The titles show usual title sequence: where we get to know the director, producer, execuutive producers, cast, director of photography and so on. The title of the movie (Halloween) has been written in serif font, probably to set the creepy mood.

There's a black screen and titles apear on it, so it's an example of "titles over black screen followed by a narrative". There's a pumpkin on the left hand side, at first it's a midshot, and the camera slowly zooms in to a ECU.

I think, that the tense and high pitched music, orange font and pumpkin with candles lighted up inside create a sense of a tension, and in some way set the feeling of the movie. I haven't seen the movie, but I guess it's a thriller about something that could happen on Halloween. The use of orange writing and candles in the pumpkin attracted me the most.

fonts

Serif Font- traditional, more formal. A serif is the extra little detail at the endo of each stroke of every letter.

Sans Serif Fonts- modern, informal, 'friendly'. Without extra details.

ROCKY used sans serif font. The letters are big, bold and in black. It fills the page in, the writing on the top. This links to the theme of the movie, as the writing itselef connotes something strong (in reference to the fighter).

Public Enemies.

the font and colour (gray/metallic) looks very solid, immovable, masculine and strong. Again, linking to the theme of the movie. Michael Mann, a designer of the font, says that holes in "B" look like a bullet holes. In order to create a font for the movie set arounds '30s, he looked at posters for Roosevelt's New Deal. (good idea to look for inspiration)

"Fonts Conver an emotion without actually having to say the words"

audience

When producing our own movie, we have to consider the audience we'll aim our movie at, this way it's easier to figure out what out what their interests might be and what they're likely to watch. About 700 movies were released in 2010 (every website says someting different). Out of 700, about 50 suspense movies were released.
 Action, animation and comedy takes up about 52% of the box office in the UK. This is because these genres appeal accross different age and genders. Similarry to as animation, where it primarly aimed at children, who are likely to watch the movie with their parents. Also there are many adults who still like animation. (Good for them!)

This table shows, that female are more likely to watch romance and period (male are not interested in happy endings and movie-love), rather than male, who prefer action and sci-fi.(Female aren't interestes in robots, aliens and crime). Comedy, horror and suspense are likely to be seen by both genders. (wide viewership).

Some thrillers take up quite a low proportion of UK box office (4% in 2009). This may be because that many thirller movies are rated +18.

For making my own film, I'm considering rating it +15, through this it will be seen my more people.

The Opening Stracture

Movie openings are devides into specific stractures.

1. A NARRATIVE OPENING with titles running through, where the narrative (the story) starts straight from the beging. We get to know what happens, we might know the characters and setting. Over this, we have title sequence running through. Classic opening usually have a narrative openings, for example The Panic Room.

2. A DISCRETE TITLE SEQUENCE, where we have seperate title sequence and opening, so in other words: the opening in not part of the story. It should still link to what the movie will be about by giving us hints and clues,introducing the movie and its theme. But still, it's not part of the narrative. For example Seven is considered as most effective opening. It creates sense of mission, murder, mystery and precison. The music is creepy with strong beat and is very unsetteling. This is the opening:

3. TITLES OVER A BLANK SCREEN, FOLLOWED BY NARRATIVE OPENING. So really, it's just screen with titles and then the narrative starts. Persinally I don't think these are very effective in a thriller movie, because they don't create tension. Also, in different movies where the titles run for so long I sometimes get bored, because I just want to watch the movie.

4. There is also another group called STYLIZED EDITING, where everyting depends on the editing, usually about speed ups/downs. I think this metchod is usually used in action and crime movies.

Example: Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.

Planning and Editing- JELLY BABIES

So today we had to make a story and plan it... this time, instead of writing it down on a story board, we used  j e l l y   b a b i e s !!

It was really fun, we could get different shots and make the scene, go crazy with it (well, not too crazy because we're going to be filming it next lesson!). It was hard to get some shots, such as close up because the camera would go out of focus and we couldn't take too much close ups. BUT we've taken few long shots, over the shoulder, two shots and so on.

We took many pictures and then unloaded them on Final Cut Pro, to place them in order and colmplete a story. We could even add sound it it, but we've run out of time.

Placing the pictures on story line was easy, because we didn't have to cut the clips and place them in the right order and right place. We just chose our best shots, and then placed them on the time line, so I quite enjoyed that.

I'm also really excited about filming and Im looking forward to it.