To merely gather a further understanding of opening sequences to assure that our opening sequence includes as many conventions as possible, I watched a few opening sequences of different genre of films. I attempted to analyse what works within a sequence and what doesn't.
The first of the opening sequences that I watched was from "Mission Impossible". From watching it for a first time through, although a very short opening sequence, I thought it was very effective. To target the audience it has included elements of the key conventions, one of which is the audio. "Mission Impossible" has a very distinctive soundtrack, in which is the main focus of this opening sequence. The visual shots themselves do not deem as important as the audio in this opening, merely because visually not much happens. The shots are very short and sharp, where the audience do not receive a detailed view of what each element of the shot entails. I thought this was clever in adding effect; perhaps adding a sense of mystery on what the film is about. Through looking at the computers, ID cards, close up shots of the protagonist and several close up shots of objects within the sequence, the audience are aware of the crime genre of the film, yet not much of the narrative has been revealed. This opening sequence I thought was very simplistic, yet extremely effective merely due to the use of audio.
Another opening sequence I watched was from "Catch Me If You Can". An immediate difference I noticed between this and "Mission Impossible" was the fact that this one was all animation and had no live action shots. However it could be argued this one is equally as effective. The audio included in this title sequence is jazz style music for the duration of it; giving the animation a mysterious feel, which when I watched it did grasp my attention. The links between each animated shot are very clever and well produced, however I thought the opening sequence seemed very similar for the whole way through and due to the long nature of it eventually lost my attention. This I thought was the only downfall to this opening sequence. I do think it is effective in portraying the mystery genre of the film, and proves that animation can be just as effective as live action.
Alongside looking at opening sequences from existing films, I went on YouTube and searched for some produced by media students in order to see what looks effective and anything that our group could learn from. I found "Scapegoat: Horror Opening Sequence (AS Media Studies Coursework)" and thought it was a high standard example of the genre of film my group aim to produce. The simple audio of howling wind and a strange atmosphere gives an instant effect, where it is further emphasised through the close up shots. However the element that most impressed me on this video was through the use of editing; shots have been manpulated in the way that some look like they have almost been fast forwarded. This definately gave an eerie effect to the opening sequence and I thought was an extremely effective method of editing. Although the only critiscism of this video I could point out is the repetition of this effect. They have put the fast forward effect in the film throughout the whole of it; hence becoming less and less effective each time. I think it would have been better through using less of these and concentrating on the different types of shots.
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Research into Opening Sequence Designs
To get a better understanding of what makes a successful opening sequence, I watched and took notes on the ideas of Kyle Cooper, the acclaimed title designer.
Kyle Cooper Interview Part 1 and Kyle Cooper Interview Part 2
Through watching these two interviews with Kyle Cooper, I have learned simple methods in which create a memorable opening sequence. An opening sequence that will be successful is the kind that sets an expectation for the film; one that makes the audience excited and nothing will distract them from it. Cooper uses "Se7en" as one example of a successful opening sequence. The credits themselves in this sequence are hand written; a tool that is not only a suspicious and eerie effect, but is symbolic to the film as a whole. A huge element of "Se7en" is the way in which the protagonist keeps a journal of the events. The hand written font in this sense links to this; making me understand that an opening sequence should post clear links to the actual film. Cooper said that you should make the typography in the context of the film your about to tell; random sequences will lose interest of the audience.
Something else Cooper taught me from watching the first interview is to use out of the ordinary images to capture the interest of the audience in your opening sequences. For example, Cooper stated he likes using cells, and elements of the skin in horror/thriller films. Thinking of new ideas and being creative within the editing suite is what makes a good shoot.
Typography is seen at it's most effective when simplistic. An opening sequence that made an impression on Cooper was "The Dead Zone"; a key example of simple typography through use of mysterious overtones of music, and effective fonts. Also through watching the opening sequence to "To Kill A Mockingbird", I discovered that linking the opening sequence to obsessions of the protagonist in close up macro format are hugely effective. It allows the audience to gather an insight to the characters without initially seeing them, and making a judgement on them. Comfortable opening sequences are ones in the form of a story; where you could use this opportunity to introduce the metaphors that the film will entail.
Opening sequences are important in giving an opportuinity to advance on the plot of the film. From looking at the advice of Kyle Cooper, our group now feel confident with our ideas. We will use close up shots, perhaps take the form of a narrative opening sequence and link small elements of the sequence to the main plot of the film in the hope to make it effective.
Kyle Cooper Interview Part 1 and Kyle Cooper Interview Part 2
Through watching these two interviews with Kyle Cooper, I have learned simple methods in which create a memorable opening sequence. An opening sequence that will be successful is the kind that sets an expectation for the film; one that makes the audience excited and nothing will distract them from it. Cooper uses "Se7en" as one example of a successful opening sequence. The credits themselves in this sequence are hand written; a tool that is not only a suspicious and eerie effect, but is symbolic to the film as a whole. A huge element of "Se7en" is the way in which the protagonist keeps a journal of the events. The hand written font in this sense links to this; making me understand that an opening sequence should post clear links to the actual film. Cooper said that you should make the typography in the context of the film your about to tell; random sequences will lose interest of the audience.
Something else Cooper taught me from watching the first interview is to use out of the ordinary images to capture the interest of the audience in your opening sequences. For example, Cooper stated he likes using cells, and elements of the skin in horror/thriller films. Thinking of new ideas and being creative within the editing suite is what makes a good shoot.
Typography is seen at it's most effective when simplistic. An opening sequence that made an impression on Cooper was "The Dead Zone"; a key example of simple typography through use of mysterious overtones of music, and effective fonts. Also through watching the opening sequence to "To Kill A Mockingbird", I discovered that linking the opening sequence to obsessions of the protagonist in close up macro format are hugely effective. It allows the audience to gather an insight to the characters without initially seeing them, and making a judgement on them. Comfortable opening sequences are ones in the form of a story; where you could use this opportunity to introduce the metaphors that the film will entail.
Opening sequences are important in giving an opportuinity to advance on the plot of the film. From looking at the advice of Kyle Cooper, our group now feel confident with our ideas. We will use close up shots, perhaps take the form of a narrative opening sequence and link small elements of the sequence to the main plot of the film in the hope to make it effective.
Choosing your genre
The above table I found on http://www.the-movie-times.com/, and it shows the top grossing films of all time in the U.S. By looking at the titles of the films, five out of the top ten films are Sci Fi. This includes Avatar, Star Wars, E.T, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and Spider-Man. When looking at these films individually and in the context of producing an opening sequence in that genre, Sci Fi would be very difficult to establish the different conventions in order to make the genre clear within the first couple of minutes.
Alot of the above films are adventure, which also would be hard to differenciate because to make it look realistic and effective, the opening sequence would need to be fast paced as adventure and action films are. Aside these genres, the only other was animation, which for us, would be virtually impossible.
Therefore, I researched genres that I thought would be approachable as media students to address and make look effective as an opening sequence. These included Romantic Comedy, Horror, Comedy, Crime or Musicals. To get a further look at these remaining genres, we devised a questionnaire that we gave out to people of different age groups.
Questionnaire
Our questionnaire consisted of the following questions:
1. What is your favourite film genre and why?
2. What is your favourite film and what genre what you categorise it under?
3. What do you expect to see in an opening sequence?
4. Is there a genre you would like to see more of?
5. What makes you interested in a film?
6. What is your gender?
7. What is your age?
From gaining the results of the questionnaire, a common answer for a popular genre of film was horror/thriller. Therefore we compared our results of the questionnaire to our independant research of genres, and discovered there was a need in the market for thriller/horror films. As a group we took this into consideration, and beyond thinking of initial ideas for this genre, we decided this is the way we would head.
Conventions of an opening sequence
The opening sequence of a film is the key part in initially showing the audience an introduction to the genre of that film. It sets the standards and base of the film that is being shown, and make the audience gain that important first impression. Throughout an opening sequence the intention is to gain an establishing shot, alongside the characters being identified through visual and audio. Therefore I have chosen two films, one being "Austin Powers; Goldmember", an action comedy, and the other being "Juno" comedy, and have taken screen grabs of the opening sequences. Doing this will enable me to gain an understanding of what makes a good opening sequence, a skill that I will need to know when completing my main coursework.
Austin Powers: Goldmember
I had chosen to analyse the opening sequence to this particular film because I feel it drastically portrays the genre of it immediately. The key conventions within this opening sequence are the audio, costumes, props and also the idea that the titles themselves arent included within the very opening.
When watching this opening sequence, the first thing that struck me was the action in the opening. The audience see what appears to be a male skydiving, therefore the audience get the impression that the film they are about to watch is pure action. This changes, however, when as shown in the fourth image, props are beginning to be introduced. The main prop that is seen within this opening sequence is the car, showing the union jack flag and a numberplate that is shown in a close up to give a sense of comedy. Knowing this prop is added so immediately to the opening sequence makes the audience aware that the initial impression of an action film that they perceived is not one hundred percent true, and that this film is also a comedy. Adding to this thought is the drastic, over dramatic action stunts that are included in the opening sequence, such as screen shots 5 and 6. Seeing that they are so overly dramatic gives a sense of being false, which also adds a sense of comedy. This is somewhat confirmed towards the end of the opening sequence, where costumes and actors are revealed. Costumes are of a comedic value and are the same as the traditional 'Austin Powers', however the actor seen is Tom Cruise, which the audience will be well aware is not the actor of this character. When the final clip of the opening sequence is revealed and it is shown as a film set up, the audience are now confirmed of the action comedy genre of this film.
The audio also plays a main part to this opening sequence. There is a slight use of dialogue towards the end of the opening sequence, adding to the 'set up' effect and not distracting the audience from the genre to be focused upon.
Juno
I thought this title sequence would be good to analyse due to the differenciation between animation and live action. It is clever in making it tie in with the opening storyline, and the jittery animation gives a clear account of the comedy genre.
One of the main conventions in this opening sequence is the use of animation. The props shown are in animation, such as the bottle of milk, which you could say represents a sense of childhood. Credits shown in the opening sequence are superimposed over the top of the existing image; which is done because the actions in the sequence is merely a girl walking down a street, therefore credits do not distract the subject. Animation itself adds a sense of childhood and naivety, something that distracts a serious tone to the film. In this case, the audience are clear that the genre is one of comedy. Also within this sequence the audience are introduced to the protagonist of the film, in this case is a young girl.
Friday, 7 January 2011
Targets
Beyond learning what skills I have developed through the preliminary task, I also became aware of things that are in need of developing in order to be successful on my main coursework task.
Firstly I want to improve in the area of lighting. This is a key area I want to develop in mainly because our group had problems with lighting in issues of continuity in our preliminary task, and it makes a huge effect on the outcome of the piece. I will assure that continuity factors to do with lighting is avoiding by watching making sure the camera is not moved within filming at a certain angle, and logging exactly where it is if moving is necessary. Also, if possible, I will avoid filming on different days, therefore the natural light will be near enough the same in each shot that is filmed. If as a group we do this, when at post production stage our shots will run smootly and will avoid any situations that we encountered in that we had to add extra shots to avoid the audience drastically noticing.
Another target I want to set myself is with blogging. I want to not only become more urgent with my blog, in the sense that I will spend more time on it so all of my ICT is verbally correct and it is of a high standard, but I want to get my blog finished quicker so I can spend more time on the production stages itself. Doing this will allow me more time to perfect the visual side of coursework, yet gain high marks on my blog due to the standard of my blog. This target should be done weekly; I will dedicate more time to my blog so that everything is completed in more time.
Another element I feel can be improved in is team organisation. We worked well as a team, yet at times lack of organisation confused situations and wasted time. Therefore, if as a team we are more accurate and precise when planning a task and dedicate certain jobs to certain members of the team, we will be making good use of our time and will have a good outcome on our final piece. This target will have to be performed by all members of our group to assure that it is done well, therefore will start immediately.
I also feel I can improve at the stage of logging rushes. We encountered a problem when logging rushes on our preliminary task; although we had a clear understanding of what we had to do, we didn't ensure our shots were visually perfect before logging therefore we wasted alot of time logging irrelevant footage. To avoid this in the future, I will ensure that our whole team is present when watching the final rushes, so that we can stress our concerns and re-shoot the footage if necessary before logging the rushes. This will be done within the production stage of future projects.
The final area in which I would like to improve in is script writing. Initially the group was unsure of creative ways of portraying our chosen genre, alongside acheiving the dedicated layout of a script. Therefore I will go over and learn the ways of setting out the script so that this is not a problem when writing one. However my main target for script writing is to get more creative within the script itself so that our genre is presented adamently.
Firstly I want to improve in the area of lighting. This is a key area I want to develop in mainly because our group had problems with lighting in issues of continuity in our preliminary task, and it makes a huge effect on the outcome of the piece. I will assure that continuity factors to do with lighting is avoiding by watching making sure the camera is not moved within filming at a certain angle, and logging exactly where it is if moving is necessary. Also, if possible, I will avoid filming on different days, therefore the natural light will be near enough the same in each shot that is filmed. If as a group we do this, when at post production stage our shots will run smootly and will avoid any situations that we encountered in that we had to add extra shots to avoid the audience drastically noticing.
Another target I want to set myself is with blogging. I want to not only become more urgent with my blog, in the sense that I will spend more time on it so all of my ICT is verbally correct and it is of a high standard, but I want to get my blog finished quicker so I can spend more time on the production stages itself. Doing this will allow me more time to perfect the visual side of coursework, yet gain high marks on my blog due to the standard of my blog. This target should be done weekly; I will dedicate more time to my blog so that everything is completed in more time.
Another element I feel can be improved in is team organisation. We worked well as a team, yet at times lack of organisation confused situations and wasted time. Therefore, if as a team we are more accurate and precise when planning a task and dedicate certain jobs to certain members of the team, we will be making good use of our time and will have a good outcome on our final piece. This target will have to be performed by all members of our group to assure that it is done well, therefore will start immediately.
I also feel I can improve at the stage of logging rushes. We encountered a problem when logging rushes on our preliminary task; although we had a clear understanding of what we had to do, we didn't ensure our shots were visually perfect before logging therefore we wasted alot of time logging irrelevant footage. To avoid this in the future, I will ensure that our whole team is present when watching the final rushes, so that we can stress our concerns and re-shoot the footage if necessary before logging the rushes. This will be done within the production stage of future projects.
The final area in which I would like to improve in is script writing. Initially the group was unsure of creative ways of portraying our chosen genre, alongside acheiving the dedicated layout of a script. Therefore I will go over and learn the ways of setting out the script so that this is not a problem when writing one. However my main target for script writing is to get more creative within the script itself so that our genre is presented adamently.
Evaluation of skills developed
Preliminary task final cut: Doctors.
Mostly, it has developed my skills within the technical area, particularly within editing. Although within the production stage itself, when initially beginning the filming I didn't realise how much of an issue continuity would be. I already knew the basic skills in making sure continuity factors wouldn't affect the audiences' viewing, however I now know that it can happen with even tiny factors. Not only with visual elements; hair, costumes, setting and props, but with the shot styles and lighting. Now I have had the experience and moreso dealt with issues of continuity on the preliminary task, I know that more planning and concentration is needed in order to avoid these issues in the first place. Also it has developed my skills in using the camera itself, and gaining an understanding of what angles and positions make a good shot. Particularly, however, my skills in using the editing suite have been developed. As a group we used alot of elements in the editing suite therefore became aware of the types of things we could manipulate within the programme.
My creative skills have developed in a way that within the preliminary task we tried to think outside the box and avoid stereotypical shots within a genre. Creativity has broadened in the way of music choices, and more than else elements within a sequence that portray the chosen genres.
The preliminary task has been a success in the way that it has broadened my knowledge and developed my skills in understanding how to produce a short piece of film. This is the case for technical skills, creative skills and personal skills.
Mostly, it has developed my skills within the technical area, particularly within editing. Although within the production stage itself, when initially beginning the filming I didn't realise how much of an issue continuity would be. I already knew the basic skills in making sure continuity factors wouldn't affect the audiences' viewing, however I now know that it can happen with even tiny factors. Not only with visual elements; hair, costumes, setting and props, but with the shot styles and lighting. Now I have had the experience and moreso dealt with issues of continuity on the preliminary task, I know that more planning and concentration is needed in order to avoid these issues in the first place. Also it has developed my skills in using the camera itself, and gaining an understanding of what angles and positions make a good shot. Particularly, however, my skills in using the editing suite have been developed. As a group we used alot of elements in the editing suite therefore became aware of the types of things we could manipulate within the programme.
My creative skills have developed in a way that within the preliminary task we tried to think outside the box and avoid stereotypical shots within a genre. Creativity has broadened in the way of music choices, and more than else elements within a sequence that portray the chosen genres.
Post-Production
After initially watching the rushes, we were pleased with how our final footage turned out. Therefore we booked the editing suite and began logging rushes. Although, after logging all of our rushes, this was the stage at which as a group we decided to shoot alot of our footage again. With this in mind, many of our logged rushes became irrelevant and time became limited. We logged the rushes in table format with seven different columns, making it easily identifiable and straight forward.
Beyond doing this, we went through the footage and constructed a rough cut of the visuals, alternating between the two video tracks again making the editing process easier. We alternated between the group members to ensure that all of us could have a go on the editing suite, and as a rough cut we were pleased with the outcome. We did have some issues of continuity, such as the lighting in many of the shots. Some shots went from very light then to immediately very dark, something which as a group we werent happy with. To solve this, we added short shots in the places where lighting changed, making the difference less obvious to the audience.
After adding transistions between each shot on our rough cut and making it visually pleasing, we added the title at the beginning of the piece and credits at the end. To fit with the mood and tone of the piece, we wanted simple titles consisting of a plain black background with white captial letters. this gave no distraction to the mood we wanted to acheive when watching the piece. Similarly to create a more intense mood, we searched for some appropriate eerie music to add to the opening titles. When we found our chosen music, we added it to the audio track, fading up and down between the shots at the opening of the piece and the end.
By doing this we acheived the genre and mood that we aimed for when planning the preliminary task and we are all pleased with the final outcome.
Beyond doing this, we went through the footage and constructed a rough cut of the visuals, alternating between the two video tracks again making the editing process easier. We alternated between the group members to ensure that all of us could have a go on the editing suite, and as a rough cut we were pleased with the outcome. We did have some issues of continuity, such as the lighting in many of the shots. Some shots went from very light then to immediately very dark, something which as a group we werent happy with. To solve this, we added short shots in the places where lighting changed, making the difference less obvious to the audience.
After adding transistions between each shot on our rough cut and making it visually pleasing, we added the title at the beginning of the piece and credits at the end. To fit with the mood and tone of the piece, we wanted simple titles consisting of a plain black background with white captial letters. this gave no distraction to the mood we wanted to acheive when watching the piece. Similarly to create a more intense mood, we searched for some appropriate eerie music to add to the opening titles. When we found our chosen music, we added it to the audio track, fading up and down between the shots at the opening of the piece and the end.
By doing this we acheived the genre and mood that we aimed for when planning the preliminary task and we are all pleased with the final outcome.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)