1. The purpose of a title sequence and film opening

What is the purpose of a title sequence and film opening?

A title sequence is used to introduce the film and give the viewers a feel of what is to come. It can also be used to name of the actors that are going to be featuring in the film, and at the end of a title sequence it will always give the name of the film.

Title sequences incorporate the logo of the institutions that are involved in the film, including the production, distribution and finance. The purpose of this is to advertise the company, establish the expectations of an audience and can be used as a symbolic code for the specific genre that is being used.

Title sequences can also be used to give the audience an idea about what genre the film is, as well as setting the tone/theme for the upcoming movie.

2. How can a film opening attract an audience?

3. What makes a good title sequence according to Kyle Cooper?

4. Analyse 2 title sequences

5. What conclusions can you make about the titles in title sequences?

The way title credits are ordered is that firstly the company behind the film is usually named, typically filling the whole screen and sometimes dates when the film was created.

This is followed up by naming the director of the film and all of the main (usually famous) actors that are featured.

Finally, any notable producers are named in the opening, and any other additional companies that may have helped with production.

The title credits and opening typically last between 1 and 3 minutes, depending on how big the film is and how many actors are featured in the film. The font styles that are used usually correspond with the certain time periods that the film may be set in, and font size will all depend on how many actors and producers that they wish to list at the start of the film, e.g who deserves to be credited for their work during production.

6. Pick your favourite film and analyse the type of title sequence it uses

The type of title opening here is a "Stylist" opening, with the time vortex in the intro setting the scene and telling us this is a sci fi film. You don't often see a flying blue box in space travelling through colourful lights and stars, so it is trying to give the audience a feel of what is to come.

As for the order of the credits, you firstly see the name of the film, shortly followed by a list of actors and important people. Usually the first people you see are the main characters.

7. What are the 4 different types of film opening?

8. What is Genre?

History of the Crime Genre

What is Genre?:
It is the way of categorising films. Genre can evolve into hybrid genres and sub genres, e.g. Alien.
- Genre changes over time due to:
- The attitudes of the public changes
- Changes in law/ legislation
- Genre changes

Sub genres of crime can include cosy mystery genre, legal thriller, forenisc thriller and military thriller. Other hybrid genres can include Film Noir, Courtroom Drama, Hood Films, Heist and Law and Order.

What was the first ever Crime film?

The first known crime genre film was known as The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) and it was about organised crime. It was directed and written by D.W Griffith and is known as a non-profit film, symbolising the minimal money it made if anything at all.

How has crime films changed through different decades?

An early example of a crime film is “Born to Kill” of 1947 it’s about a man who kills a girl she likes and her boyfriend out of jealousy. Due to the decade that this was made in, this would have been a lower budget film considering the fact that WW2 would have just finished, and the number of willing actors would have been at an all-time low. Another example is “Bonnie and Clyde” of 1967. This is one of the first crime films to be filmed in colour, immediately suggesting this has a higher budget. This film is one of the more famous crime films of this decade, considering its rather tragic ending. “Pulp Fiction” of 1994 however is known as one of the most successful crime movies to date, despite it being usually known as a gangster-crime movie. It is about two hitmen trying to retrieve a suitcase from their employer. Finally, a more recent crime film would include “Spectre” of 2015, although crime is just one of the sub-genres of this film. It is about a cryptic message from Bond’s past which sends him on a trail to uncover a sinister organisation hidden away. This film was made over the course of 3 years, meaning it would have had a high budget and lots of props and actors to work with.

     



In more modern crime films, story plots tend to have a more complicated and longer storyline due to the fact that modern films have larger budgets, which means they can make the films longer. Modern crime genres usually have a more significant number of actors included on the cast usually to accompany bigger storylines. Some noticeable directors include Tarentino and Whit Masterson.

9. Post your answers to the BFI Statistics yearbook

10. Analyse title sequences of your chosen genre and Conventions

11. Genre Shortlist

For our film opening, we had the option of two genres:

1. Crime
2. Horror

I have decided to do the Crime genre.

12. Why is sound so important in a film?

13. Analyse the use of sound in one film opening

In this particular film opening, there are range of different sounds and techniques that are used. As the scene begins, we have some sound effects to go with the on screen text, which is showing you where the film is set. We also begin to hear a voice over, which is helping us to set the scene.

As we cut to the actual man talking, we can faintly hear some non diagetic music in the background, as in these particular shots we want to focus on what the actor is saying and we want to hear it as clearly as possible.

When the man leaves the room, the non diagetic sound starts to become louder and we eventually cut to a song, which starts as the title credits occur. As this song is playing, some diagetic sound is present, with a series of explosions and crashes happening around this man as he is walking. There doesn't appear to be a sound bridge in this particular opening.

14. Summarise your findings of the genre conventions in film openings from the crime genre

Bullet points of conventions of crime genre:

-  Fast paced, suspense and a lot of action
-  A crime genre always has a protagonist and antagonist
-  An action scene such as a fight scene or chase scene
-  High intensity Moments
-  Wants the audience to get the know the character(s) very quickly
-  It will create enigma (making the audience ask questions)
-  Other crime genre examples include robberies and shootouts

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

• In the first screenshot, it shows the institutional value of this film. As it is a low budget film. we decided on our own name which reflects who we are as a group. We went for a bold, capital letter style font, as it can clearly show the audience who is involved in the film. There is no filming at this point, just a black screen which will fade into the first scene.
• The second screenshot shows the first of our titles, with this one being the director. The setting for this particular shot is in a country lane, away from the general public. We see a mid-shot of this character, and his facial expressions can give us the impression that he is not happy and perhaps wants something.
• The third screenshot is a similar shot to the 2nd one, however it shows the other character. A key difference in this shot is the mise en scene. This particular character is the owner of the mobile phone which gets stolen by the other character, and without this prop the whole film opening would be an entire waste of time.  
• In the fourth scene, we get to see the characters come together for the first time. This is an important scene as it sets up what is to be a lengthy chase scene for the rest of the opening. This is the point where the faster music commences, and we begin to get a broader look at where this is happening, despite having an establishing shot at the start.  

• The fifth shot further shows our text font which we have chosen for this film opening. we see the feet of both of the characters in this, which move in time with the titles as they appear and disappear off the screen.
• The camera in the 6th shot here remains still for the entirety of the fight scene, simply because we wanted all of the action to be fully captured. This a long shot as you can see the area in depth, and you can clearly see that this is set in the countryside, with there being a few houses in the middle of lots of green. This fight seals the deal and should make everyone who is watching aware that this is crime, with the innocent person scurrying to try and get his phone back.
• The seventh shot is a close up of the mobile phone. We did this so the audience could have a closer look at the key prop in this opening scene.
• Finally, this last shot shows a complete change in scenery, following a fade to black that would have occurred before this shot. There will be a voice over happening at this point, summarising to the audience what is happening and why the character stole the phone in the first place.

Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

This is one of the characters from our film opening who is the robber, and the other photo is someone who is doing a similar thing in a film called "The Robber", where this person is going around trying to steal money from banks.

Similarities

One of the obvious similarities here is that they both have their hoods up, trying to hide their appearance so that they can do what they want to do. They both also have a similar role in their respective films, where they both want money so they can pay off debts/ use it for their own personal pleasure.

Differences

One of the key differences here is that the character in my film only has his pockets to hide what he has stolen, whereas the character in the other film is carrying a bag, suggesting he is very prepared and has been planning it for a while. The character in "The robber" also is wearing slightly different clothing, with him clearly wearing more layers and long trousers instead of shorts.

Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

A production company essentially creates the film and assists with its budgeting, scripting and casting. It is the company that looks over the film, ensuring that everything is running smoothly and nothing is going wrong.

The distributor for my film could be someone like Sony Pictures. They are not as big as Hollywood, and someone like Sony would probably want to distribute a film like this.

The money for this film would probably come from a local production company, as it has a simple story line and no headline actors. Hollywood would simply not be interested, as if anything it might lose them money.

The people named in the titles are the director, executive producer, chief editor and the actors. These are the people that made the film happen, and are the people who put the most work and effort into it.

In the titles, the jobs appear in the order of Director, Executive Producer, Editor, Actor 1, Actor 2.

Films that would be released in a similar way to mine could be "Night of the Living Dead" and "Saw" which are both low budget films made and distributed by local film companies.

Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

My target audience was teenagers aged between 16 and 18. Photo example below:

Facts about target audience:

They would most likely shop at clothes/games shops depending on what gender they are
The sort of music they would most likely listen to is modern up to date songs, however everyone has different taste.
Favourite TV programme could be something they have grown up watching, e.g Doctor Who.
AS for favourite film genre, everyone is different. Could be crime or horror.

If the notes above are correct about this specific target audience, then they would probably watch our film. It is about modern day youth crime concerning people of their own age, and I think that they might be interested.

Question 5 - How can you attract/address your audience?

I have added some annotations to the original film opening video explaining how I attracted and addressed my audience.

Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

This is a photo of tripod that we used during production. This and the camera was used throughout the creation of the film.

Other programs that we used for the production of this film were Youtube, Blogger, Adobe Premiere Pro and Slideshare.

From using all of this, I learnt how to edit together videos, building on my knowledge of using Adobe Premiere Pro and other related software. I also learned how to use the cameras that we used throughout production, learning how all the buttons work and certain settings that it has to be on to make a film. As a whole, my ICT skills improved a lot.

Question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

This first shot here is taken form the preliminary task filmed before we made out main film. This film is driven by many over the shoulder shots and mid shots, and has some basic dialogue before it ends. It was quite a boring scene, and could have so much more in it.As for the editing, it was simple straight cuts.

These two shots have been taken from the actual film opening itself. This is only a sample of shots taken from it, with one being a close up and the other being a longshot/two-shot. However, our film opening includes many other types of shots including mid shots and point of view shots. The editing in this is a bit more advanced compared to the preliminary task. We do have straight cuts, but we also have fade in and fade to black scenes to signal the start of the film and the change of scenery completely. 

The main film opening also features slow editing at the start of the film when we are being introduced to the characters, followed by fast editing as the chase scene begins. For the mobile phone bit, we have a match on action shot where the character's eyes look down and we see movement in his arms, and then there is a cut to see that he is holding the mobile phone that he stole right at the start of the film opening. Additionally, we always ensured throughout production that we never broke the 180 degree rule, making sure that all action was occurring within 180 degrees of the direction that the camera was pointing.