TITLE SEQUENCE ANALYSIS - HOLLY

1. The name of the film (the film title):  How does it construct the Thriller genre, connect with the audience, create interest or anticipation for the target audience?

2. Consider how the film title design might further communicate meaning to the audience about genre, meaning or story. (Colour, font, animation, size, background etc).

3. What institutional info is included?

4. Is additional story info included - eg date or location of story? If so, why?

5. Are actors included? How are they introduced in the title sequence?

6. For the sequence as a whole - consider the relationship between title and credit information and the background for that frame (onto black, a still image or moving image of the actual film). Suggest reasons for it being effective as part of the Thriller opening.

7. Is the sound diegetic or non diegetic - how is the title and credit sequence edited to the music? Are sound bridges used?


8 Study carefully the relationship between moving image segments of the film (the start of the plot) and the introduction of titles. What is the order in which they are introduced? Why do you think this is?



Se7en

The title of the film is 'Se7en', which creates enigma to the audience as we wonder into seven what? The use of the number '7' replacing the 'V' is unique and generates interest in the audience.

The first view of the title is small on lit up white titling. It flickers and distorts, becoming larger, The black background is a common feature used in titling, as it makes the title stand out to the audience when it appears. The font is distorted and flickering which can communicate to the audience the genre of a thriller, the animation of the flickering can be a code to the genre, creating unease to the audience.

Two pieces of institutional information are shown in the first few seconds of the opening. This is typical of the thriller genre recently to contain limited institutional information.

Only one piece of additional story information is used, to set the time, but even then it is limited, only saying 'Monday' this creates enigma to the audience, as it is vague, not giving us an exact date, meaning it could be set in any time. The titling of the word 'Monday' is set in the same font, continuing on the thriller code, the flickering creating unease in the audience.

A large amount of actors names are mentioned in the opening, introduced in the same style as the rest of the sequence, with flickering distorted images used in-between, on a black background with white lit up writing. The font itself is written as though it is handwriting, which could link in within the actions shown in the sequence, of a person writing in a book, shown through the flickering images, showing distortion.

For the sequence as a whole the relationship between title and credit information and the background for that frame is effective as part of the Thriller opening. As the frames and images shown are used in the same style throughout, in a warped distorted style, the title and the credit information is shown on a black background with white handwriting styled font .

A non diegetic soundtrack is used alongside the title sequence, no sound bridges are used, it is used alongside the title sequence to go along with the theme of distortion and giving thriller genre codes. the music is edited alongside the title and credits to create highlights on certain points in the titling for example a distorted noise is used on a title, which is animated to flip upside down and flicker, the noise directly correlates with the image and overall gives off the codes for a thriller. The title sequence is the beginning of the film, the story has not yet been introduced, so the title sequence being used before anything else creates enigma to the audience, as the warped and distorted images are used to create questions.  

Red Lights

The title of the film is 'Red Lights'. This is a vague title and can create enigma for the audience. Blurred lights streak this way and that with swipes of white and grey, the type fading in and out in a flash, growing larger and smaller, and then comes more: hands reaching in the darkness, the glimpse of a tunnel, and the sinister sounds of a violin being hastily plucked. A dark cellar full of secrets emerges through shocks of x-rays, weathered photographs, ancient texts, equations, and newspapers. As the music crescendos, the storm of letters and lights is swallowed by television static and the thunder of a jet flying into view, the red light of the plane in focus

SOUND CONSTRUCTION

Looking for uncopywrited music happened to be quite a difficult task; after fishing through pages upon pages of mediocre sound files that didn't match the thriller genre, we finally found two clips we were interested in using.

With the help of http://incompetech.com, we managed to find:

'Long Note Two'
http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100420

"Long Note Two" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

'Very Low Note'

http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100378

"Very Low Note" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Both of these sound files are free to use, but we shall use the well deserved credits out of respect and request from the artist.

PROOF OF EDITING

As of the 16th March, we are currently busying editing our two-minute Thriller opening. Earlier last week, Alex created our production logo which will be included as one of the first things on screen... Here it is.

We used a black background as it is the most conventional colour to use for the genre. The white font is the most obvious colour to use to contrast the black. The slight red/cyan drop shadows used is to make the design 'pop' a bit more, and it is the traditional colours used in 3D cinema.

Holly and Meg are currently on the Macs, creating the short.

Last week we organised all of our files into two bins; Interrogation and Flashback.

We then named all of the files based off of what the shot's context includes. (e.g. CAR DRIVE PAST STATION)

We have learned from our last film that recording each sound piece separately is time consuming and just not effective in editing. Instead, we have continuously recorded the audio in one take - this should minus out choppy sound editing and badly synced dialogue.

It's all coming along well, but time management is clearly our biggest competitor as of now.

PROOF OF FILMING

We understand that this post has been delayed a bit too long, but as of now our main priority is to meet the final deadline this Friday.

We filmed over two days; the 25th February was strictly for the flashback montage and special FX makeup. Here is our first proof of filming post (click here) 

Here is our mise-en-scene/costume/make-up rundown post (click here)

We then went to Croydon on the 8th March to film our interrogation scene with Holly's dad playing Gareth Cox.

 This was our set-up, a small office in the Croydon Police Station. Here you can see Alex organising lighting and Holly making sure we have enough space to move around and interact.

Figure 2 is our light set-up. Figure 3 is our test shot of a map; mainly to set the white balance but also shows one of our actors interacting with the camera. Figure 4 is Alex adjusting the height of one of the shots.