Opening titles

To get an idea of what sort of opening scene we are going to do, we have been watching lots of different films and getting ideas for what we are going to do for ours. We watched different genres to get an idea of what they are all about. We wanted to look at the similarities that the films had.

One thing i noticed is that they all seem to have who is involved in the movie right at the beginning. They are all in view-able places and it doesn't matter what the start is like. Below is a screenshot of Snake eyes and Wall-e. As you can see the  actor name is in bold writing and doesn't clash with the background at all. And it catches the viewers eye.   

The films are very different, as one is real life, whilst the other is an animation, but both are similar in what they are doing in the opening clip. Both have who is involved in making the film in words right at the beginning and both are in view able fonts, and aren't clashing with the background at all.

Also what i have noticed that the opening scene tells a lot about what the whole film is going to be about. It lets the viewer know what is all going to be about, and whilst i know i am not doing this, i think the animation films tell this best. The reason for this is because it tells you what has happened before you pick up from the story line. And knowing the history of a story can help you understand the future. And with animation you can do anything and in someways it is easier to understand because of the fact that you can go into so much more detail. 

Another thing which i have noticed with opening scenes is the fact that music is also very important. Another film we watched was the film se7en. The most important thing in this was the music. 

                    

If you didn't know what the genre was, it didn't matter because the music gave you a rough idea. It was quite tense and scary, but it didn't make you think of horror. The reason for this is because of the pictures that you were seeing with the music. You knew that it was something to do with crime because of things like the lighting in the camera shots, and the fact that there were things like scissors involved, and the sort of stuff that was going on. Because the lighting was dark, you knew that something bad or illegal was going on (which is linked to crime), and because of the music you knew it was going to be a crime film. 

We watched a lot of movie opening to get the general idea, and what we noticed is that you have to put things like who is involved in the movie, and you need music to set the mood. I also learnt how important the openings are in order to help the viewer understand. I now know that we have to make sure our opening scene makes sense about what the film would be about. 

Sources: http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/se7en/

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/walle/

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/snake-eyes/                    

Analysis of crime film

Analysis of films 

One film we looked at which we thought was good was the opening scene of Dexter. The opening scheme shows us that this is a horror film because of things like the props and the camera angles. There is a big use of blood throughout the scene, which tells us how blood is going to be involved.  

This is one of the shots within the opening scene. This isn't the first time we see blood but it is the first time we see an extreme close up shot. One thing which is noticeable is the visibility of the writing and the colour of it. Not only is it a blood colour, but it is up against a white background, and the good thing about this is the fact that you can read it. The colours do not clash and it is in a position where you can see it. Having watched different genres, i have noticed that all of them have the names of the people involved, and they are all in viewable places. 

When you think of crime you think of blood and dexter, which is the main film which i have been watching, it is all linked to killing and blood. My favourite shot, is when the ketchup falls on the knife. To the audience the ketchup can represent blood and when people think of knives they usually think of blood or killing. 

Like the picture above, this is an extreme close up, and there is another reason why i like this shot, and what to use this same idea on my film. The framing is excluding the fact that it is a ketchup bottle which did this, and so the audience could view it as blood. This is called misdirection, because whilst the actor knows this is ketchup, the audience, because they know that this is a crime series, will see it as representing blood. This is my favourite shot because of how it is using a prop to represent something else. 

There is also another shot which the audience could link to. There is a shot of him cutting up fruit really slowly and this can be interpreted or linked to him killing someone slowly.

This is a good shot because of may reasons. One of the reasons is the lighting. It is quite dark and eerie just like someone would represent a killer. The lighting is only on the fruit and the knife and so it is just like what it might be in real life is someone is committing a murder. Also the fact that it is about a serial killer makes this shot even more tense and eerie because of the fact that he has a big knife. I also like the fact that the name of the co - producer is in red as well. I think they are trying to get the message across that maybe this guy like blood or there is going to be a lot of it to come. It is also setting the the tone of blood and murder, and all of this is in the shots above.

There is also a good finishing shot which can be used to sum up what the whole series is going to be about.














This shot to me sums up what dexter is all about. It shows his face in a dark light and a bright light. The dark lighting can be used to show the fact that he kills people and the fact that he is a serial killer, however the brightness on his face can represent the fact that the people he is killing are criminals themselves and so he is helping society in a way by getting rid of all the bad people. So the lighting in this shot show his to personalities which he has.

I also like the music which is involved in this opining scheme. The music is quite productive and makes it seem as though he is quite busy in that morning. The musical instrument seems to be some sort of string instrument and its in with the opening title, because of the fact that there is always something going on. I like the opening scheme to this, and i hope that we can take inspiration to this when we come to making ours.

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/dexter/ 

Film genre

Introduction

For our media coursework i am going to be doing a film. I am doing it with Dan, and at the begining we have to choose a film genre to be able to fufil the task. The task is to make a 2 minute opening sequence to a film.

The type of film generes that we have thought of doing are: (film example of each genre)


Comedy











Crime & Gangster













horror






sport











With the comedy, we think this would be good because not many people have done this before, and there is alot of choices for an opening sequence that we can choose. Also there are a lot comedy films which we can get ideas from. However we think it might be quite hard to make, because we might have to make it funny, and if it not, then it wont represent the comedy.

Crime and gangster was also one of our choises. This is the one which we think we are going to use. This is because it is different and it might be good one. Like comedy there are alot of oppotunities which we can film and we can get ideas from films like badboys.

We are not using horror because you can ruin the concept of a horror, because it is easy to make it not scary and look fake. Also loads of people who do this coursework do horror, and so it is very common. Also it is probably the easiest genre to do and is not that much of a challenge.

Finally we had sport as an idea. This would be hard to as there arent that many film to get insperation from, and also it might be too hard to film, and it easier to make it look bad rather than make it look good. Also there are only so many camera angles we can do, and with film like goal, alot of it looks fake and is computer animated which we dont have access to.

So overall we are going to do a crime and gangster film because there is alot of insperation and we believe we can achieve a good mark by doing this.