MAIN Post 3a: Further look at opening sequences

I have decided to do some research into title sequences. This time I have chose to look at title sequences of a comedy to help me get an understanding of how a comedy title sequence works.

The first title sequence that I am going to look at is Hot Fuzz, the reason I have chosen to look at Hot Fuzz is because the film is a comedy-action film.

I found out:

 

• That Hot Fuzz used the characters to show that it was going to be an action film with a comedy element.
• It also showed who made the films and who was associated with the film at the beginning.
• Fast, up beat music to set the genre of the film.
• It portrays that they are police officers as well thought the outfits.
• Action.

Below is the video of the opening sequence of Hot Fuzz.

The second title sequence that i have chosen to research and investigate is The Dilemma because I feel that i will be able to get a lot of good information from the clip to help me make my title sequence. This is what i found:-

• I found that the music was helping the situation as it was helping to bring across the comedy element.
• They just took clips from the film and edited them together to create a small story to show what the film is about.
• Good clear link between the characters and the way that they will work together and the type of comedy the film is.
• Names are the last thing in the title sequence.
• Brought me into the film as it is making me laugh and i want to know how the twist ends and I want to see the rest of the film to see if there is another funny moments.

Below is the title sequence for The Dilemma.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By me doing this research i have realise how big Hollywood film companies make the title/open sequence and have now got more of an understanding of how to make my own. 

MAIN Post 3: Research into Opening Sequence Designs

For my research I looked at two Kyle Cooper interviews, whilst I was watching theses interviews I took some notes of how to make a good opening scene, what it should included.

My notes:

• Lead into the film.
• Set an expectation.
• Should make you forget about everything else.
• Link it to your films genre. (For example in sevens Kyle Cooper made the opening sequence around a cereal killer by taking shots of hand writing notes and images on the tables and walls for instance.)
• If you can smash a glass for example instead of editing it.
• Make the title sequence inspire other people into making there own title sequence or film or get them excited about media and talking about media.
• Study your idea's.
• Experiment with different idea's.
• Help people get an understanding of the film by telling them the back story of the film. 

By me watching these interviews I have been able to get a better understanding of what a title sequences are there for as I first thought that a title sequence was there just to show the actor, producers etc. Now me and the group should be able to create a title sequence that is of a very high standard as we have tips and idea's of how to make a title sequence.

http://www.watchthetitles.com/articles/00170-Kyle_Cooper_interview_pt_1_2
http://www.watchthetitles.com/articles/00184-Kyle_Cooper_interview_pt_2_2

Here we have two links that will allow you see part one and part two of the interviews of Kyle Cooper.

Post 2: Choosing your genre

To find out and decided the best possible film genre we decided to do a questionnaire. With this information we was hoping to create a clear range of data that would lead us to the genre of the film, it was also let us get an understanding of what the audience want to see within a film, whether they just want one genre or a misc between two. The results was:-


This survey is at of 25, it is showing us favourite genre's of film from in our media class. From doing this I can see that chick flicks is the most popular choose to go watch followed by comedy and rom com. this made us think that chick flicks would be the best to film as it had such a big margin between itself and the others.

I then went of to get some more information about what people want and what are peoples favourite genre, what I did was go into town to ask people what they thought was the best genre and the results was:-

This survey is out of 50 and was from people on the streets. As we can see comedy is a clear win with action being the peoples next choose, this made me change my mind about the genre of film we was going to pick as this survey was different to the other survey and more people participated in this one.

As a group when then asked people what they like about "Chick Flicks" and they answered:-

• "They are romantic"
• "They are cute and they make me laugh"
• "They always have happy endings"

We also asked people why they like "comedy" and they answered:-

• "It makes us laugh"
• "Exciting to watch"
• "Its just light-hearted fun"

As a group we then decided to ask our class mate a few more questions so that we would be able to make the best open sequence possible.

This questionnaires tell us that majority of people only go to the cinema once a month and normally go with there friends or family.

The last bit of information I asked people was what did they think was to be in a opening sequence, they answered:-

• Film title
• Cast and Crew
• Sightings of Characters
• Creates mood
• Sets the scene
• Make you want to watch the film
• Soundtrack

By collecting this information we should be able to work together as a group to make a film that people will enjoy and that will entertain more than one genre.

2013 MAIN Post 1 - Conventions of an Opening Sequence

I am looking at some opening sequences to get a better understanding of what I will be making and what they normally look like, from doing this I hope it will help us as a group to make the best sequence possible.

The first sequence that I am going to be looking at is 21 jump street, the reason that I have chosen this open sequence is because it is a comedy and it is about teenagers like are sequence/film will be about.

These images are showing us clips of the opening sequence of 21 jump street. What I found out when watching this clip is that it gives you a strong idea of what the film is going to be like without giving away the main plot.

They do this by making the sequence full of action to portray what the film is going to be like, the opening sequence also gives you all the actors names so you know who is staring in the film, how produced it and writer for example.

 Also the sequence let me know that there would be a lot of violence and content that would not be suitable for a young content.


The next sequence I am going to be look at is skyfall, which is an action film. The reason I thought I would look at this sequence is because our film will also have clips of action within the open sequence.

When I was looking at the open sequence I found out that the background music can be a key features as it can cause the tense you want within the sequence to draw people in.

This sequence also showed me that not all sequences have to be fast and full of action but can still be affective.

http://www.artofthetitle.com

This link above gives you all the opening sequences you want to watch and will help you get a good understanding of opening sequences because there is all different genres.

Post 12: Independent Work Towards Targets

 Here is an image of me practising shot size's as you can see from my second post I took more to get the adjustments right when filming because I was the camera man. I personally thought that this would be a good idea because if I get all the angles right filming it would be better and look more professional.

This is an image of me practising the 180 degree rule so that we would be able to stick to the rule to make the film look realistic. By doing this I wanted to achieve full understanding of the rule so that I could master it when filming, when film we put tape on the floor so that we know we would cross the line. It is important to do this because you can make the people/actors look like they have changed sides. this is why i went out and did independent work.

Here I have also practiced a shot-reverse- shot because I know that I would be using it a lot within filming so I thought it would be good to go out and get some practice of the shot to make sure it would work in our film and speaking parts.

What I have done here is gone around all the locations that we will be shooting in to make sure that we have choose the right area's as a group because it is vital to get a perfect loaction.

 

 

 

Post 11 Smart Targets

So that I improve my film and blog I am going to set myself five smart task.

Smart targets

1. Lighting- My smart target is to making sure I use lighting when filming because when filming the preliminary task i didn't take filming into consideration and just filmed with the natural light when it would of been better to use artificial light.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/knowledge-center/how-tos/camcorder-operation/production-lighting-6-tips-for-filming-at-night.html

This link takes us to a website that will show you how to use lighting in different environment.

2. Script writing- What I have to take into consideration when writing the script is weather or not the audience will connect to what we are writing or weather they will enjoy the final articular. what i will do to insure that the script is better than last time is take these details into consideration.

3. Framing- When filming what we have to take into consideration is the rules of framing like the rule of thirds and make sure we include them in the film to make our film better and more realistic.

http://www.surreyborder.org.uk/woolmers-wisdom/woolmers-wisdom-1.htm

This takes us to a website that will show us and teach us about framing so we will be able to improve are filming from this advice and skills.

4. Improving level of ICT in blog- How I plan to do this is be adding more links so that we will be able to look at website that helps us with the area we are looking at, at the time. I will also like to add in more video's because i feel that they help people and me to learn better and it give the blog a different look and will benefit people as well.

5. Team communication- I feel that our group could improve our communication but i feel that we work well as a team last time. What i would improve would be to make sure we know all the times of filming and talk more as a group when making decisions.

Post 10: Evaluation of skills developed

Here we have is a video showing us what we thought went well with the filming and what we also felt didnt go to well.

This short clip will allow us to see what we have done well within the film and what we could maybe improve.