RESEARCH: ART OF THE TITLE - HACKERS (1995)

RESEARCH: ART OF THE TITLE- SE7EN (1995)

The opening sequence does not include any long shots but is very short and snappy and suggests to the audience that it is set in an office or someones home as the props used are your typical daily use thing like tape scissors and paper. everything is shown for a very short time creating suspense and tension making the audience want to know more. All of the shots are reasonably dark which creates more tension.

The editing is a montage of a lot of different short clips from around the room and object close ups. Nothing is in order therefore shows more mysteriousness and darkness. Some of the clips fade into black creating a eire feel and atmosphere.

The non-diegetic soundtrack is fairly slow at the very beginning making the editing of the shots slow but once the speed builds up the editing becomes shorter and snappier to create even more tension. Some clips are in slow motion. This is an added special effect when editing, there is also so flickering and background noise to make the mood eire again.

The titles look like they are in a hand written font and t appears in white to make it stand out from the black background. The production companies are listed first in this order: New Line Cinema, Arnold Kopelson and the followed by titles for the creator of the film David Fincher and the main actors. In this case Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman.

RESEARCH: ART OF THE TITLE - EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (1990)

RESEARCH: ART OF THE TITLE - THE CONJURING (2013)

The conjuring falls under the genre of horror/thriller. The opening title sequence is in black in white to create a scary, old and dull atmosphere. The darkness of the opening can suggest mysteriousness or death and the bright white areas could represent the purity which could make the audience unclear of what to expect and also make them want to cary on watching. The use of newspaper adds to the realness of the plot. 

The movie title is presented as a long shot of a tree and a house with a rope naming from the tree. The title is in amongst the tree in white font. This also creates an eire atmosphere. 

Furthermore the pictures of the people reveal that it could be based in the past as the clothes worn are very old fashioned and the pictures are very old. The X-ray layers could suggest that there is a lot of layers to discover about the story.The non diegetic music is slow and set the mood as very dramatic and yet scary. 

The first title to be presented is the director, James Wan, in the centre of the image. Followed by Chad Hayes, Carey W. Hayes who wrote the film and the producers, Tony DeRosa-Grund, Peter Safran and Rob Cowan etc... Furthermore credit is given to the actors such as Patrick Wilson and Vera Farming as they are the main characters in the movie. Credits to the production companies: A New Line Cinema presentation  and Safran Company/ Evergreen Media Group Production are given along with credits to a James Wan Film. 

 

RESEARCH: ART OF THE TITLE - SHERLOCK HOLMES (2009)

The genre of the movie Sherlock Holmes belongs to thriller, action and also comedy genres. The colours used for the opening sequence are black and white for the main footage but they appear to change to sepia hand drawn sketches or watermarks that imply the era the movie is set in (Victorian). The use of dark colours reinforces the thriller part of the genre of the film.

The opening title tells who the director is, Guy Ritchie. Credit is given to Michael Robert Johnson,Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg for the screenplay. Next to be given credit are Lionel Wigram and Michael Robert Johnson for the screen story. Also mentioned are the producers Joel silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan downey and Dan Lin. The executive producers Michael Tadross and Bruce Berman are also given credit in the opening sequence. The editor James Herbert and the main actor in the move Robert downey- Junior are mentioned before the main title of the movie that appears centre shot in old fashioned pen and ink wash handwriting just like all of the titles before hand. This creates a background noise. All of the titles are carefully placed so they are visible. the colour of the font changes to white if the background is too dark which draws the audiences attention.

The soundtrack fits the editing because when the soundtrack slows down so does the editing and the image comes to a still of a title and a pen and ink drawing. In contrast when the tempo of the soundtrack speeds up so does the editing and the pen and ink wash fades away and a new black and with real life image appears with no titles on it. The audience is drawn in by the suspense and dramatic non diegetic music used.

The Production companies are mentioned at the very end of the opening sequence. " A Warners Bros. Pictures Presentation","Village Roadshows Pictures", "A silvers Pictures Production"," A Wigram Production" and " A Guy Ritchie Film" were the last production companies credits given in the opening sequence.

RESEARCH : ART OF THE TITLE - JUNO (2007)

RESEARCH: ANALYSIS OF THE OPENING OF NOWHERE BOY

Nowhere boy 

In the beginning of the opening it is clearly shown that the movie is sponsored by "Icon" and "Film four" and also sponsored by the "Uk Film Council" through The national Lottery. The movie is co-produced by "Northwest vision and media" & "Lip sync Production" & "Hanaway films" & "Ecosse Films". 

The director of the film is announced in the titles by the words " a Sam Taylor-Wood film". In the most prominent letters the title of the movie "Nowhere Boy" is shown centre screen. 

The establishing shot is a wide shot of a young boy running energetically through a grand building which is in contrast as the building itself looks quite old and elegant. The young boy does not look intimidate by this and conveys how rebellious he is. However the sense of venerability is created when a shot of the boy curled up in bed is presented sharply from a birds eye view. The pyjamas and the bedding create a sense of the time period as they are not very modern at all.
The audience is interested from the very beginning when it is clearly shown that there is a conflict between John Lennon (young boy) and his aunt Mimi that he has grown up with. Aunt Mimi is presented as a very neat and strict woman who always seem to be very collected. This is presented by her always perfect hair, clothes and speech.

In contrast with this relationship his uncle, George, is presented to be in a much more loving and close relationship with John Lennon. This is a shown in a two shot of the pair hugging and is also shown in scene where they have fun setting up music in John's bedroom and sharing alcohol with each other like they are both of the same age. This makes the family dynamics very clear to the audience.

The soundtrack to the movie is a classic Rock n' Roll song to convey the time this was set in (1950's). The soundtrack is carefully picked to represent John Lennon as a "Wild Child" as he rebels. 

FILMING OUR PRELIM

Click here to see prelim

Today in our media lesson we had some fun playing around with the cameras and filmed our very first prelim as a group. My group consisted of Chloe, Ollie, Xander and Ryan. We used a big room with big windows so we can have good lighting in the video. However whilst editing the video we realized that some of the footage (mainly the one with the camera facing towards the window) was too dark and almost looked like it was created on purpose to create tension or a dark atmosphere to suggest that the figure in the clip (Ryan) has a dark soul. Further more we had troubles with some jump cuts whilst editing. For the soundtrack we filmed Xander playing an original song on the piano and edited it so it would last for the whole of the prelim. For better sound next time we would use an external microphone instead of the camera one and for better lighting we would use a studio light to help adjust the brightness of the room and clip. My job was to be the woman that the mysterious man was giving his number to and help with the editing and transitions.

RESEARCH: TRELLO

I have started using Trello today, in order to help me stay organised throughout this month and my research for film openings.

Click here to see live link

RESEARCH: BRIEF

I have chosen the brief of the video where the main task is to make the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.