The Art of the Title

The Art of the Title is a website made to analyse title sequences of films and television shows. The site contains the title of the the film the are analysing, pictures from the opening, a video of the opening and an article analysing the opening.

When you first open the site you see what title sequence they are analysing for the week, this week it is 'Trainspotting'. When you click on the image it takes you to a video of the title sequence shown.

Then when you click 'view article' it takes you to a new page where a critique has an article about the title sequence. You can also click to find out about the writer and the editor of the article and to the sides of the article it tells you information about the film, such as who directed it and it's release date etc. 

You can also click on title sequences/ designers + studios which drops down to a list of recommended and classic title sequences.

Title Sequences I think are effective

Deadpool

This title opening is effective as it sets out the tone for the rest of the film. It tells the audience that this film is not afraid to parody other films and also poke fun at themselves. This is obvious when we see a picture that shows a parody of the films main star (Ryan Reynolds) other superhero character he once portrayed , Green Lantern, in a film that was regarded a massive flop to the audience and critics alike. It is also full of some subtle and not so subtle references to Marvel comics. The juxtaposition of the calm song playing whilst it shows images of people dying also fits into the films comedic tone.

Fight Club

I also think that the title sequence to 'Fight Club' is effective as it manages to set the scene and tone of the film perfectly in only a minute and a half. The audience is taken through a journey through a dark and disturbing ride out the skull which starts of at the fear centre of the narrators brain. This manages to make the audience feel unsettled and anxious leaving no doubt in the audiences mind that they are about to  watch a film with themes of darkness and introspection.

Title Sequences

The order the titles appear in: Producers, Main Actor, The Author of the novel the film is based on, Title,  Supporting Actors, Continuity, Camera Operator, 2nd Unit Cameraman, Wardrobe Supervisor, Chief Make-Up, Hairdresser, Construction Manager, Props , U.S.A Crew, Supervising Art Director, Co-Art Directors, Special Effects, Optical Effects, Editors, Dubbing Editors, Sound Recordists, Colour by, Stunt men, Choreographer, Costume Designer, Casting Director, Main Title Designer, Production Supervisor, Assistant Director, Location Manager, Director of Photography, Title Song Composers/performers, Music Score by, Screenplay, Producers, Director.

The opening suits the genre of the film as it is tense and exciting creating an thrilling effect which draws the audience into the film with it's fast-paced music. The many symbols of fire will show the audience that there will be lots of danger in the film and this is supported by the continuous use of the colour red. Also the woman in this intro continuously changes her face which shows that the woman will either die, be dangerous or cause the death of someone in the film.




The order the titles appear in: The production companies, The Producer, Director, Main Actors, Title,  Supporting Actors, Co-Producer, Author of the novel the film is based on, Creator of the Titles, Music by, Costume designer, Film Editor, Production Designer, Director of Photography, Co-Executive Producer, Executive Producers,  Producers, Screenplay, Director.

This title also gives the audience a very good idea of what will happen in the in the film. The titles features many chases telling the audience that chases will be a prominent part of this film. This is supported by the fast paced music which shows that this film will be a fast paced one which will excite the audience.



The order the titles appear in: The production company, Film producer, Main Actor, Titles, Supporting Actors, Story by, Screenplay by, Assistant Director, Assistant Art Director, Cameraman, Assistant Cameraman, Sound Engineers, Script Girl, Production Manager, Production Assistants, Production Secretaries, Make-up, Hairdresser, Set and costumes by, Editors,  Music By, Special Effects, Equipment, Costumes, Technicolor, Director of Photography, Production Supervisor, Titles by, Director.

This opening is very fitting of the films western genre and sets the mood of the film perfectly.The sounds of gunshots tells the audience that this film will feature lots of deaths or at the least lots of gunfights, the images of the men riding on the horse tells you that there will also be lots of travelling by horse in this film, another convention of the genre. Everything in these titles from the text to the music is very fitting for the western genre.

Idents

What is an ident? 

An ident is designed to identify a particular studio, it is like a logo. The design needs to be memorable and easily recognisable to the audience. Both film and television studios often have moving idents. The ident always appears at the start of a film, before it's opening titles. 

Examples of Studio idents

Film4 Studio Ident History

Columbia Pictures Studio Ident History 

BBC TV Ident History

Star Cinema Studio Ident History

Continuity Editing

Continuity = linking shots logically so that they make sense

Continuity retains a sense of realistic chronology and generates the feeling that time is moving forward

They may use flashbacks or flash-forwards but the narrative will still be seen to be progressing forward in an expected or realistic way

Eye Line Match

We see a character looking at something off screen and then we cut to a shot of what they are looking at.

Match-on-action

We see a character start an action in one shot and then see them continue it in the next.

Graphic Match

When two shots are linked with a similar shape or composition of an image. The filmmaker can choose to place shots in a certain order so as to create a smooth visual transfers from one frame to the next.

The 180 Degree Rule

The 180 degree rule is a basic guideline that states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other, If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the 2 subjects it is called crossing the line.

Shot/Reverse Shot

Shot/reverse shot is used to show conversations or arguments.

Speed/Style of Editing

What is Editing?

Editing is the process of looking at all the footage shot at the making of the film, placing it in the desired order and joining it together.

2 Key Areas of concentration when editing
1. Speed of editing (How long does each shot last?)
2. Style of editing (How is each shot joined to the next?)

Speed of Editing

In a film a scene could last a matter of seconds or minutes but the length of each sequence helps determine the mood of the scene.





If the audience is meant to feel anxious or suspenseful the editing will be very quick with the scenes and shots frequently changing with an example being this action sequence

If a relaxed mood is desired, the scenes will last longer and change less frequently.

However a film also does not need any editing at all. The film Russian Ark was filmed entirely in one take using a steadicam and  a digital camera. This required split-second timing and careful 

organisation. 

A trailer for a film needs to pack in detail from throughout the film, therefore the editing will be 

very fast. For example this scene in Sleepless in Seattle.  During the trailer for Logan which is under 2 minutes long there are over 50 cuts.

The scenes at the beginning of the film must be long enough for us to be able to understand what going on and where we are. It is also slow so it can introduce the main character/characters. As a film progresses scenes may become shorter as the editing cuts between telling 2 or more storylines at the 

same time.

The average length of a shot in the opening of Spiderman is around 15 seconds.

 

The average length of a shot in a fight scene of Spiderman is around 1-2 seconds.

During the beginning of the shower scene the cuts last a while and puts the audience in a relaxed mood. However in stabbing scene cuts are very fast and frequent this is done to make the audience surprised and anxious but also is done to give the audience the idea of a stabbing because when this film was made you could not show stabbing on screen so Alfred Hitchcock had to be smart in how he would show it.

Style of Editing

The style of editing is how the shots are linked together, the movement between one scene and the next is called a transition. 

The straight cut is the most common and invisible form of transition. One shot moves instantaneously to the next without attracting the audiences attention. It helps retain reality and does not break the viewers suspension of disbelief.

A fade is a gradual darkening or lightening of an image until it becomes black or white.  One shot will fade until only black or white can be seen. It is used to indicate the end of a particular section of time within the narrative or could show a passing of time. 

Wipes are when one image is pushed off the screen for another. The image can got either left or right however it is more common for an image to be pushed left as this movement is more consistent with time moving forward. It is used to signal a movement between two different locations that are experiencing at the same time. It is used extensively in the Star Wars franchise. 

A jump cut is where the audience's attention is brought into focus on something very suddenly. This occurs by breaking continuity editing and is known as discontinuity, it appears as if a section of the sequence has been removed. 

Analysis of Modern Thriller Openings

Zodiac

This film is based on a true story immediately increasing the films tension to the audience as all the events that happen in the film are based on fact telling the audience that there is no comfort that this story is just a film. The audience will also feel more sympathetic or more repulsed towards characters depending on their actions as everything happening has some truth to it.

The film opens with non-diegetic music accompanying a panning crane shot of a city lit up at night. By including the whole city in this shot tells the audience that the murders and crimes committed in this film will be large-scale crimes. The decision to have the setting be at night time adds a dangerous and more sinister feel to the film. The fireworks then shown add an image of danger as fireworks are a safety hazard and people are always constantly on guard around them in fear that something will go wrong with them. This feels like metaphorical foreshadowing of future events in this film. The next cut to a tracking shot of a car making it's way through the neighbourhood and the fireworks are going off in the background, giving the audience a false sense of security as it's the 4th of July which is a time of celebration and so there is no danger when everyone is so cheerful.

Then a car pulls up to a house and a man runs towards the car and starts to talk with the girl. The conversation is normal with little real meaning and the man eventually gets into the car and it starts to drive off. They drive to the car-park and agree it is too crowded and decide to leave to go somewhere else. This leads them to pulling up into a remote car park in the middle of nowhere, the scene is dark and the only thing really visible is the car. The audience are then unnerved as the characters are now alone and isolated in nowhere so anything could happen with no one to witness it. Then the sound of a car pulling can be heard making the audience more nervous about who it is and what they intend to do. The tension is increased when the cars headlights are turned off giving the impression that it wants to go unnoticed. The man makes comment about his worry about the car confirming the audiences suspicion that there is a reason to be worried. Out of nowhere the car then leaves but instead of decreasing the audiences concern it happens to increase it.  As the diegetic sound of the tiers screeching away and the showing of the girls worried expression the audience knows that this is not the last time we'll be seeing this car.

At this point we can see that the woman is conventional to the ones found in the thriller genre: she is a blonde who causes the trouble (it was her idea to go somewhere remote, we find that she is already married yet out in the middle of no where with a guy and she keeps acting shifty all of which automatically causes mistrust as the audience begins to suspect that she has something to do with car that we just saw. We hear the tiers screech again and we know that things are about to get bad. This car is returning for no reason making it anxious to think about what this person might do. It takes a long time for the car to pull up allowing the people in the car to panic not knowing what is going on. This makes the audience sympathise with them as we know that they are about to be killed. The guy gets out of the car goes over and just starts shooting over and over and when he runs out of bullets he gets more and just continues shooting like it's no big deal this is extremely chilling as everything just seems so mundane to him and he's just taking his time which means that he has not concern over killing them he doesn't even bat an eyelid. He then casually walks away and it fades to black leaving the audience feeling uneasy and questioning what will happen next.

Brick

Brick opens with a non-diegetic western music, which is unusual. The sound is almost trickled into the film but the transition feels unnatural and a little off putting.  There is then a pan to a close up of shoes, increasing the unusual feeling of the opening and gives the audience very little information, making them question the importance of showing the shoes. There is then a transition to a close up of a face and then transitions to a tunnel where we can see that the face and the shoes belong to a man and the man is crouched looking over at the dead body of a woman. His expression is one of mesmerisation of the dead body increasing the unsettling, creepy feel of the film then emphasised by the western music still playing in the background. However since this man is looking over the dead body in that way and the way he is positioned, crouched on the other side of the tunnel makes the audience question whether he is responsible for this death or is he just creepily fixated by this kind of thing. Whichever the scenario it makes the audience curious while also adding a feeling of discomfort. This is then emphasised with the scene cutting back and forth of shots of the mans face and the woman's dead body, this makes the audience think that the man is trying to mesmerise every detail of the body. Also the back and forth between them both gives them a connection which increases the audiences curiosity concerning what this man has to do with this dead person making them want to watch on to find out. 

No Country For Old Men

No Country For Old Men opens with a non-diegetic sound of a voice over of a man with a thick southern accent immediately puts the viewer on guard as stereotypically an accent from the deep south is a character that is either a cowboy, have extremely creationist views or just crazy. This creates the feeling that something bad will happen by the audience and that what they are about to see will probably be disturbing. The imagery at the beginning is a series of dark landscape scenes of native american land filled with shadows which adds a sinister feel to all of the natural scenery like mother nature has turned bad. As things start to light up as day begins it gives the impression that something big is about to start. Then there is a scene where two guys are fighting on the floor, one trying to kill the other. In this scene diegetic sound is used. There is no voice over, no music- nothing but the squeaking of the mans shoes on the floor. The absence of sound causes the audience to feel uncomfortable as there is no distraction from the fact that he is being murdered, making it all very real. During this sequence there is a close up on the villains hands allowing us to see just how physically violent it is. 

Mise-en-scene Excercise

This exercise is about Mise-en-Scene and facial expressions, these expressions include:

Relaxing (shown by the person putting their feet up)

Happiness (shown by the person putting their thumb up)

Sadness (shown by the person rubbing their eyes)

Anger (Shown by the person scowling)

Thinking (shown by the person looking up)

Nervous (shown by the person shaking)

Sound Exercise Evaluation

For the sound exercise my group filmed a sequence where a deal goes wrong.

We included:

Diegetic Sound - The dialogue

Non Diegetic Sound - The soundtrack

On-Screen Sound - The dialogue

Off-Screen Sound - The Police Car 

Contrapuntal Sound - Soft Soundtrack during a tense deal

Ambient Sound - The Natural noises

We didn't include:

Pleonastic Sound - We didn't find an appropriate place to include it

Sound Bridge - We only filmed one scene

Parallel Sound - We didn't remember it

We also included the soundtrack by playing it on the phone into the mic and it sounded muffled so next time we'll just edit the soundtrack in the film afterwards 

Sound Excercise

Shifty

"Shifty" is a British Film that was made in 2008 under the Microwave Scheme that was funded by the UK Film Council (since replaced by the BFI). The aim of the scheme was to provide young London filmmakers with a platform to make a small independent film.

The rules of the microwave scheme were that the film had to be in 18 days with a budget of less than £100,000. "Shifty" opened in 51 small independent cinemas such as the Curzon chain and on its opening weekend took £61,000. The final box office takings were £143,000. Most of the films profits came from DVD and television sales.

"Shifty" was distributed by Metrodome. £50,00 was spent on making celluloid prints of the film, administration and advertising. The intention was to attract two different audiences. The first audience was the middle class audience that regularly sees small independent films at independent cinemas. They also wanted to attract a new, younger urban audience. This audience had made "Kidulthood" and "Adulthood"

In order to target to both audiences, Metrodome produced different trailers. Interestingly the trailer targeting the youth audience had a soundtrack of 'hip hop' music. There was no soundtrack in the actual film.

In addition Metrodome ran adverts on pirate radio stations, used Fly Posters (these are illegal posters that are put up) and gave out ‘business cards’ which depicted Shifty as a drug dealer and directed the recipient to a website. A music video to promote the film was posted on YouTube and a website was created and promoted on social network sites.

Most controversially, the film sent out viral emails that identified the recipient as a potential drug dealer. The Advertising Standards Authority received a complaint and the emails were banned. However, the ‘bad’ publicity generated helped to promote the film.

Example of an Article commenting about Shifty's controversial e-mails

Finally, Metrodome targeted the youth audience through a competition offering £500 worth of studio time to young musicians. The lucky winner had the opportunity to work with Riz Ahmed – a musician who starred in the film.

"Shifty" is a thriller with a slow build. There are 3 interwoven threads in the story. Chris (played by Daniel Mays) is a young man in his 20s returning home to visit his best friend who has not seen for years, this sets up the enigma of : Why did Chris leave his home for years? The audience would suspect that something awful must have happened but we are unsure of what it is.

   

The audience quickly learns that Shifty has become a drug dealer. As he completes his 'round' the film manages to successfully create an accurate picture of urban life.The second thread to the story concerns Trevor who is a drug addict and now is desperate to get some cocaine. The audience now becomes involved in Trevor's desperate search for drugs as it becomes more desperate

The third and most important plot involves Shifty beign placed in danger by Glen who lies and claims Shifty is short changing his supplier. Shifty now fears for his safety and the film builds toward a climax of tension. The final resolution to the film manages to take the audience by surprise.

         

I think that Shifty is a very effective thriller. The thing I liked most about it is how, unlike most thrillers, this film managed to have a realistic and life-like feel to it whilst also managing to entertain an widely ranged audience. My favourite part of the film was the final scene as it managed to throw me off as I was expecting an intense shoot out involving Shift like you would get in a typical thriller. However this film managed to trick me because the film had a slow and more realistic ending where Shifty does not save the day and this is what makes the film unique.

Analysis - Rope

Analysis - Source Code (Prezi)

Analysis - Psycho

Psycho from Patrick Healey

Lighting /Colour

Colour

Denotation - Literal description of an idea, concept or an object. For example red,blue and green are colours.

Connotation - What we associate with a particular idea, concept or object. For example:



The first colour film was made in 1904 by George Melies. The film was hand painted frame by frame.

Then they introduced two strip technicolor which used only red and green. 

Example (The Mystery of the Wax Museum, 1933):

Next was the first full three strip technicolor film which was Becky Sharp (1935).

Lighting

The standard lighting set-up looks like this:

Key Light: The brightest and most influential light. 

Example:

Back Light: Helps counteract the effect of the key light or creates an outline or silhouette. 

Example:

Filler Light: Helps to soften the harsh shadows the harsh that the use of key and back lights create. Example: 

Under Light: When the main source of light comes from below the subject, used in thrillers and horrors. 

Example:

Top Lighting: When the main source of lighting comes from above, highlighting the features, used to create a glamorous look.

Example:

Low Key Lighting: Created by using only the key and back lights. This will produce a sharp contrast of light and dark areas on the screen as vert deep,distinct shadows are formed. (Known as chiaroscuro)

Example:

 

High Key Lighting: More filler lights are used. Lighting appears realistic and has no shadow.

Example: