The Art Of The Title Sequence

The styles of the titles

• They are orange in CAPITAL LETTERS.


• BOLD

What the titles say?

The titles include :

• The title.


• The cast.


• The director of photography.


• Associate producer.


• The production manager.


• The executive producer.


• The producer.


• The director.
  

The images in the title

There are images of a pumpkin, with its eyes and mouth glowing.

Types of shots which are used

The types of shots used in this title sequence are wide shots, medium shots, close ups and extreme close ups. I think it is set out this way because, the audience are suppose to get a sense that the pumpkin is coming closer. I noticed that, on the top left of the title sequence there is a wide shot of the pumpkin, then at the bottom right, the pumpkin has gone. It is like an unexpected disappearance, almost like a ghost.

What appeals to me

In this title sequence, the colour of the writing, on the black background, catches my eye because it gives titles that glowy look, that says "spooky", it is not dull. The pumpkin, also catches my eye beause, it glows, and the way it is coming closer, i think that is effective.

Overall, i think that they have made this title sequence in an effective way, and have used their imagination wisely. The font, colour and style of the writing of the title sequence, links in with the actual title of the movie "HALLOWEEN".

Match Cut Practice

In our lesson, we were set a task, to film a sequence, with at least one match cut.

The brief was : A character opens a door, walks into a room, sits down opposite another character and they share a few lines of dialogue. It had to include a shot reverse shot and we had to show our understanding of the 180 degree rule.

As a group, we decided to base the match cut practice on "Teenage love". We took a basis of a teenage love film, and made it into our own style. The match cut in this exercise was when, the young girl enters the room. First, there is a close up of her hand on the door, then a long shot of her just about to enter the room. Then, there is a close up of the door opening, but the camera is focused on her feet. The 180 degree rule, was when she walked into the room, the camera was following her feet, as she was going to sit down. We included dialogue in this practice because, it makes it more interesting and, the audience have a feel of what we want to show. There was an extreme close of the teenage boy because, we see his reaction when he is told the shocking news. The scene is with a shot reverse shot, between the converation of the teenagers. At the end, there is a two shot (high angle), we both teenagers, coming to an agreement.

I very much liked the match cut practice because i feel that it was much easier. I think, that we shot the close ups, where they were needed. I also think, that we shot the match cut and the 180 degree rule well. I liked our story line to this sequence because it was easy to film and get the right shots. And we as a group, learnt how to improve it, seeing as we did not like the other practice.

Match cut prelim leonora

We was asked to do a match cut of somebody entering a room and sits down opposite somebody else and they share a few lines.

This match cut was based on a girl who is constantly late and gets chucked out of her school.

I personally think that our match cut was successful. I think the close ups that we have done were good like for example the cut from where the young girl walks towards the room then goes to a close up of her hand on the handle and opens the door. This sequence was actually quite easy for us to shoot because there wasn't really much going on so it wasn't complicated. Our shot reverse shots as we were doing the dialogue bit was also good I think. But i think the one thing we could have improved was the dialogue, using some close ups to our lips of something would have been great.

Card Game Practice

In our lesson, we were set a task to film a game of cards in a thrilling and exciting way. We were also asked to create an atomosphere of suspense. To create a sense of tension we had to include:

• ECU (Extreme Close Up)


• A POVE shot (Point Of View)


• An over the shoulder shot


• A tracking shot

For the props the had to include a pack of cards, two players, a table and chairs to sit on.

1. There were low angle shots of the table, from the different corners of the room.


2. Then, there is a panning of the room, where the card game is going to be set.


3. Then, we zoom in and get a close up of the cards layed out on the table.


4. Then, we zoom in and get a close up of the card game being played and the cards in the two players hands.


5. There is is dark screen for about three seconds, to get the audience to think what is going to happen next.


6. Then, there is a shot of a spinning chair, to show that something has happend to the players, seeing as they are not in the shot no more.


7. Then, at the end, the cards are scattered on the table. The camera is unsteady, as it is a point of view shot, as if someone in the room looking at the table, confused by what has happend.

What could have been better :

When I watched the clip all over again, I noticed that the zooming in was too much. To make it better we could have just got a close up of the cards on the table. I liked the sound effects at the beggining, I think that is what made it more effective. I think at the end, when it showed all the cards scattered on the table, we could have had someone's hand in the shot, as if they were murdered, to get the audience wondering how they got murdered.

Match cut Practice

we decied to shot a short film and this one was called ' Young Love' we took the basis of a normal film which was just a door being opened and zoomed in shots of feet. we added speech to it to make it more intresting and gave it a point and almost a moral.
we startedof the scene with a zoom in shot of leonora shala's hand then we had a long shot of her and what was behine her. we then had a shot reverse shot from japhet mesfin from his face to the door which showd his reaction to when it was being opened. then we had the door opening and only a shot of leonora's feet walking towards japhet at the table.we had match cut of her hands and then we began to hear her speech telling the audience in which she had the results for her test.we had a ecu ( extreme close up) of japhets face and his reaction. the scence then continued with leonora's speech and then a shot reverse shot to japhets speech and reaction. we then had a two shot,then scene then ended with comforting close which took place from japhet towards leonora .
in comparrison from this film to the card game practice i did not really do that much i just prompted and co directed and helped with ideas and angles of the camera. we had our two actors
leonora shala and japhet mesfin and our director sylvda shyllon.
finally i enjoyed making our match cut practice but there are still things in which we could learn or change in order to gain ideas for our real film.

News & Current Affairs Events

The Story Which i will be talking about is one in which i found in my local newpaper the metro. it is called.
'Boy complains that his red and black hero is now made to be a softy'
A boy of 8 has complained to the beano for making his hero ndennis the menace ,too nice.jacob rush pleaded with the comic's bosses to return to the spiky haired character to his naughty best after he was turned into a softy. he say's i don't like dennis becuase he does not have his catapault or water pistol anymore and he is not menacing enough. his father mark also wrote on behalf of his son it means to jacob that dennis is now boring. sadly the protest seems to have fallen on deaf ears and simply ignord. they receieved a reply saying the beano charcter has been brought into line with the cbbc tv series.
i personally think that they should of not changed the raw egde of dennis the meance. however simply left it how it was due to the fact that was simply what little children such a jacob went home looking forward to watching there little programmes and the difference from the cartoon charcters in comparrson to others. however if they make all the chanracters the smae and make them innocent simply there will be no excitment and plain old boredom for the youth of today.

Card Game practice

we were told that we had to make a film which contained the props being a pack of cards . it was our decision of how we decided and wanted to make the cards. we decided that we were going to make a simple innocent card game mysterious and also scary we decided to use a range of shots and veiws in order to catch the audiences attention and then later add sound affects to create some sort of spooky theme.
we set out short film out into 15 shots. they were

• shot reverse shot reverse shot of the table and each time something was added to the table.
• panning of the room
• zooms in and out of the cards suddenly appearing of the table
• zooms in and out of the hands appearing on the table playing cards (boy & girl)
• cross cuts between a plain table,spinning chair and cards scaterred on the table

we shot each scene or shot serperately and put them all together in the end by using technical auditand added sound effects by using livetype and sound.

then there we had our own card game practice film.

Events diary blog on the News

HAITI EARQUAKE..





i chose the haiti earthquake because i am going to compare it with the film called "EARTHQUAKE"

In this film, parts of the city is detroyed because of this disaster and it reminded me of the earthquake that had happen in Haiti.

Card Game PRACTICE

Title sequence analysis of DEAD CALM

The title sequence also included:
The cast
The production manager
The movie title
Who it is presented by
The editor
The director of photography
The original music
The director
The screen play
The costume designer

The title sequence in its order :

• 3 secs - Warner Entertainment
• 17 secs - Kennedy Miller presents
• 22 secs - The movie title "DEAD CALM"
• 36 secs - Sam Neill
• 41 secs - Nicole Kidman
• 47 secs - Billy Zane
• 53 secs - Casting Liz Mullinar, Wally Nicita
• 1:00 min - Production manager - Narelle Barsby
• 1:05 - Costume designer - Norma Moriceau
• 1:11 - Production designer - Graham 'Grace' Walker
• 1:16 - Director of photography - Dean Semler A.C.S
• 1:22 - Editor - Richard Francis Bruce
• 1:28 - Original music - Graeme Revell
• 1:34 - Screen play - Terry Hayers
• 1:39 - Producers - Terry Hayes, Doug Mitchell, George Miller
• 1.47 - Director - Phillip Noyce

The title of the film 'DEAD CALM' appeared very big in capital letters, bold and in red on a black background and so it made it stand out which was good because it is very eye catching. Also, the use of the colour red for the title, I think was a hint to show that this film will involve BLOOD - DEATH. The editor, costume designer, producers etc, are all written in big and bold capital letters. The colour of the writing is white on black background so it is clear to read/see. The way the titles fade in and out make it mysterious, it gives you this FEEL of danger..

The sound effect during the title sequence was rather calm but with a glimpse of evilness. This then tends to get the audience to keep watching and wonder what will happen next..

Technical audit of bait tutorial

In my media lesson we learnt how to use final cut pro. This program is used to edit our clips. We learnt how to cut clips, sequence, add sounds, import and export.

Analysis of a film

DEJA VU

what happened in the clip - the film creates a happy mood whilst getting into it so it makes the audience have a positive thought/feel about the film but the sound is what makes it seem a little suspicious. it shows a good vibe by having everyone smiling, happy running like they cannot wait to get on the boat and leave.

use of camera - in the film there were several birds eye views used

sound - the sound is what makes it suspicious because its got a sort of sad, piano playing then something like a detective sound track playing to which doesn't match the actors' face expressions and actions.

mise en scene -

editing - slow motion, freeze frames, the little girl loses her doll, for-shadowing

titles -

Match cut PRELIMINARY FILM PRACTICE

The art of the tittle analysis of 9 shots

I Choose to Anaylise Kung Fu Panda
in the first scence screen one the is animation of a monkey running and climbing up clouds (dreams)
and swings the bamboo stick around and sits of the moon and as if the monkey was fishing it begins to reel in dream works animation skg.
the style of the tittles are

• big


• bold


• capital


• clear to understand and read

however the title of the film itself 'kung fu panda' is in fact widely spread and curves at the sides of certain letters. then the tittle begins to float and fade away as the film starts. behind the title is a orange sunset which helps the title to if almost stand out. the type of shots which are used in the title sequence are long shot of the panda then a match cut to a extreme close up of the panda.the the camera zooms out and then a cross cut is made to another seen.( of the fowes ) throughout the title scene there are lots of zooms in's & outs and over the shoulder shots. close up and medium shots. personally about the title sequence i like the beigning in the sense of the way the 'panda' is portrayed in the sense of he is seen as a super hero , a saviour as he does good and does not do no harm to those but saves them also i find it kind of funny to watch a panda fly.

Hameed Shaukat, the producer for both the opening dream sequence and custom DreamWorks logo, as well as the 2D animation for the end credits Say's :
“I can’t stress enough, neither the opening Dream Sequence of Kung Fu Panda nor the character animation in the End Credits contain any CG animation. It’s all 2D/traditional/hand-drawn.
The dream sequence was designed and laid-out at DreamWorks Animation under the direction of Jen Yuh Nelson with Production Designer Ramone Zibach and Art Director Tang Heng, who developed the sharp, high-contrast, highly-graphic, anime-influenced style. Once the backgrounds were complete, they were delivered to James Baxter Animation; everything from animation through compositing of the final shots.
James Baxter tackled the animation in unique ways. In one shot he would hand-draw the animation completely from start to finish, and in another he would do just a few drawings that were then digitally manipulated in After Effects. In addition, all effects animation consisted of traditional hand-drawn effects as well as digitally-manipulated elements from the original Photoshop files. Can you tell which is which? Being the master animator that Baxter is, the merging of the two is seamless. It helped keep the James Baxter Animation crew to only 12 people.
Jen, Ramone and Tang also designed the custom DWA logo sequence to perfectly match and lead into the dream sequence of Kung Fu Panda. We used mostly the same crew as on the dream sequence, but this time with animation by Rodolphe Guenoden.”

Ending credit sequence

http://www.artofthetitle.com/2008/10/03/kung-fu-panda/

News and Current affairs

The news I chose is "East yorkshire man killed in Tenerife robbery." I chose this story because I think it is a similar plot to that of a thriller film.

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/8507130.stm

Peter Cockshutt, 71, of Brandesburton, near Beverley, was found dead in his holiday villa on the island on Monday, the Foreign Office said.

He had reportedly been stabbed and police believe he may have been killed as thieves tried to burgle his house.

Mr Cockshutt's daughter Janice told BBC News it was still unclear exactly what had happened to her father.

This story involves a violence, crime, a murder and confusion. It is the type of story which is common in thrillers. If I was to make this to a thriller I would create a past time story and link it to this and make this the ending. I would create a "false Plateau." This is where the audience think they know what will happen next but it isn't what really happens next.

I would also include dramatic music in this scene to keep the audience tense and also use fast match cuts to create a fast paced action scene.

Fonts

There are basically two types of font :

• Serif fonts - This is generally more traditional and often slighty more formal than sans serif fonts. Such fonts as Times and Courier. A serif is the extra little detail at the end of each stroke of every letter.
  


• Sans serif fonts - This is generally more informal, more modern and more 'friendly'. Such fonts as Ariel and Comic Sans.
  

In my lesson, we looked at two types of fonts from different promotions.

The font for this promotion is masculine, it is in CAPITAL LETTERS, it is tall and it is bold. The font is patriarchal, as it is a war film. It echos a telegram as it is old fashion, more formal, and traditional. The font stands up straight like a soldier. The font used in the promotion is called PALATINO.

The font for this promotion is strong, bold and very heavy. It is all in CAPITAL LETTERS, tall and dominant and patriarchal. It is more simple, and more informal. It has a big impact like a punch, seeing as the film is about boxing. The font used in the promotion is called Franklln Gothic Heavy.

The font for this promotion is, all in CAPITAL LETTERS and, it is big so that the audience are able to see the film title. There is a difference between both words in the film title. 'MEAN', is more masculine, bold, thick and, harsh. 'GIRLS', is more feminine, it is not bold and it is more calm. When the audience look at the promotion, they will easily identify that it is a female dominated film, because of the colour of the writing (purple). I think this font is informal and, less traditional.

I think that the font of all of these promotions deliberately match the films. For example :

Pearl Harbor - war film and patroisim

Rocky - boxing film and patroisim

Mean Girls - Bitchy film and feminine

How suspence is created in "What Lies Beneath"

Example 1:
When Claire was looking in the mirror and saw a reflection of someone in the blackground. There was silence as she looked up into the mirror and this caused suspence. There was a close over the shoulder shot of Clair through the mirror and this is where she saw the posessed reflection. Claire then started to scream and this also caused suspence.

Example 2:
When Claire was looking through the binocular and was spying on the her neighbour. There was suspence here caused by the music and the suspicion of the character that he may be the one haunting Claire's house. There was a close up on Claire and this caused suspence by showing us Claire's fearful facial expressions. Then there were long and close shots of her neighbour acting slightly suspicious. Then there was even more suspence when Claire put her binoculars down and then up again and lost sight of her neighbour. The music created suspence here and so did the fast paced close shots of her neighbours window as she was trying to locate him.

Example 3:
When she tries to run away from her husband. Suspence is caused here by the fast paced music and fast paced match cuts. The was a match cut when Claire entered the car and we see an over the shoulder shot and see her husband in the car behind. The fast paced match cuts and loud sounds in general caused the suspence and offered something different to the film as it was quite slow paced before this scene. The close up shots of her husbands facial expressions also creates suspence.

Hi group 18

Japhet & Leonora & Sylvda - Please make sure you keep up to date with your blog! It's too easy to slip behind and lose marks! Remember to do your homework on the diary of events.
Marylin - it's looking really great.