This is the first image our viewers will see, and therefore had to be effective.
The shot is zooming through a rainy city, this shot ties into our story-line as the male
protagonist is a female hunter constantly on the prowl for his next victims throughout the
city. The rain is a connotation that something bad is destined to happen, as rain can be
commonly associated with themes of a negative nature.
We presented a preview of our establishingshot to our media class mates to gain an insight as to how effective it was towards people from our target audience. Here are some of the comments we recieved:
Very Creative
Effectively created
Simple and effective
Too simplistic
Not realistic enough
The inspiration for our establishing shot came from the opening sequence of sin city:
Our rough cut gave us a rough idea of what our finished project was to look like. We presented this to our class to gain feedback of how we could improve/better or effectively alter our short film to ensure the finished outcome was of a standard to the best of our ability. Here is our rough cut presented without titles or music.
Saul Bass was an American graphic designer who developed many different influential graphics.
His most influential work was proven to be in his film title sequences, working on some of the greatest films ever made. He has created titles for films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” (1958) and the famous “Psycho” as well as many others. during the production of “Vertigo” he inventively used themes that appeared in the 2 hours of cinema that followed in the footage focusing on a female unknown to the audience but later seen with a spiral in her eye creating a hypnotising, vertigo like affect. Accompanied by the dramatic music this helped to create a very powerful and memorable title sequence.
“The title has a way of conditioning the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would already have an emotional resonance with it.” – Saul Bass
“The Man With The Golden Arm” is another well-known title sequence from Saul Bass. During this title sequence he demonstates a more simplistic approach compared to that in Vertigo and shows animated white lines both on and off the screen at off angle positions. This could reflect the nature of the films themes including drug addiction and prison life being off blanace life-styles.
This style has proved very influential and is still very prominently used in productions today. For example in the TV Drama “Hustle”, the title sequence can be noted using a very similar technique to achieve very much comparative themes of the threat of prison life.
From the work of Saul Bass i can learn the importance of having a dominant blod image and strong theme when wanting to creative an effective title sequence. As he created titles for many films from my groups chosen film genre.
During lessons we were taught how to produce music via a programme called 'O-Genenerator' however i found this software too simplistic and decided to proceed making our soundtrack using a different music software programme which although is more complexed, produces sounds of a higher, professional quality.
The programme i used to create the music for our short film is a programme called 'Reason 3.0'. This programme is installed on my own personal laptop and therefore i am very familiar with how to use it, for this reason i was nominated out of the members of my group to produce a soundtrack for our film.
Whilst producing the soundtrack i had to take into account how the sounds i used would effect the genre. As our film is an action thriller, it contains many elements of mystery and i used this idea and interpretted it into the music by the use of strings and drumbeats to portray also produce a 'Heart beat' sound effect. Using drums to mimic the sound of a heart beat again helps bulid suspence and tension and ultimately fulfills the features relavent to the genre of an action thriller.
I also included a female voice within the soundtrack as the film contains many intimate scenes and follows a male protagonist who is essentially a serial killer. The effect of the female voice within the song is that it could connote or represent the women he has victimised.
Throughout producing the music for 'Death On Tuesday' it was essential that i kept in mind the themes and movements included in our footage. I build the sound around the nature of our footage earlier filmed. The themes were presented through movements of the characters, they were of a suspicious / mysterious temperament yet held elements of love and murder. The contrasts in the psychical movements of the characters proved difficult to compose into rhythm, yet dispite this i trialled many sounds to produce the finished product (below).
The tempo throughout the song is kept relavent to one of the main themes present within the short film; Love. As there is a certain level of admiration between the protagonists, this element of the soundtrack worked effectively. However, love isnt the only theme present within the film, murder is also a strong dominant aspect. The instrumnets involved in the sound help to generate this murderous feeling and present it towards the audience.
The location for our film opening was simply set within our school tv studio. The effects and reasons for our chosen setting was due to the fact that we aspired to create a sillhouette effect of our protagonists bodies with the help of the blue-screen supplied in the room. Originally we planned to use the professional lighting equiptment also provided inside the television studio, however after a few attempts of capturing the footage we experienced many problems such as; the lighting being too bright and ultimatley producing non-believeable sillhouettes. Eventually we decided to use natural lighting as it didnt overall interfer with anything included within the editing process, in comparison to the lighting in which we first intended to use.
Initially we planned to include many different locations for 'Death On Tuesday'. Just to mention a few:
A Shower
we planned to initially include a shower scene to effectively create a scene containing a match cut stemming from the male protagonist burning a photograph, to then follow into a steamy heated bathroom in which the female protagonist is placed in, innocently showering. The effect of this was tied to our initial horror theme and was set to create dramatic effect.
Woods / Forrest scene
The woods is a stereotypical place for films within the horror genre, this was the approach my team and i were aiming to produce. This location is dark and mysterious and for this reason fits conventional aspects of a horror film.
Our Sixth form (Classrooms & Girls Toilets)
Our protagonists were before planned to be sixth form students, in their college during an after school detention. The effect of using a classroom and the toilets as locations was that it emphasized the fact that they were sixth form students, and reminded the audience of the characters image we were planning to portray.
Conversely; we altered our vision and genre of our film and therefore it was essential we changed out film location.
Throughout our project my team and i scheduled meetings to organise and plan aspects of out project. During these meetings we discussed aspects including:
Title of the film
This element produced many ideas and as our project was originally set to become a horror movie, some of the titles included were conventional to that theme for example; 'Strikes Once More.' After some discussion we produced the title 'Death On Tuesday'. As this title holdsthe conventional aspect of death to the horror genre.
Problems with footage (Friday 11th December)
after some feedback from our teacher, it became apparent that our initial plan for our film opening sequence was too long, and gave away too much of the story to be successfully effective. Taking this into account, my team and i planned a meeting to re-draft our idea and begin planning new footage. Producing a new storyboard with a new storyline, genre and locations, was completed during this meeting.
To discuss music
Muisc was now a dominant aspect towards our new plan for our film opening sequence. It was essential we all agreed on a sound relevant to the genre and one that suited us all aswell as fit the new footage.
Our male protagonist (pictured above) is seen wearing a simple suit. as our characters are to be effectively made into silhouettes it was important an outfit was picked that would cause effect. For example, the blazer of this suit when twirled will create and effect shot in the footage. Our director (India) also chose to have Nathaniel filmed wearing a suit as it portrayed his role in society further. His character is a serial killer who is of high wealthy status to ultimately seduce his female victims, and by him wearing a suit, this connotes his importance as well as his wealth.
The female protagonist (Me, pictured above) wore tight fitting clothes throughout filming to essential highlight the body / frame of the character to effectively highlight her femininity. As character are merely silhouettes, facial expressions will not be seen and therefore audience are relying on the body structure of characters to successfully present the story to them. It was also important i wore my hair down to again further express her femininity. As females are portrayed as victims throughout 'Death On Tuesday' it was important our director casted someone reasonable 'Short / small' in both hight and build to make her seem vulnerable in comparison to the male protagonist - her attacker.
Overall we came to the conclusion that the certificate for our film should be a 15 as it is essentially a teen thriller. The elements of blood and violence would also suit this rating as those below 15 years of age may be easily influence by our footage and this would mean we would be responsible for their actions. So to effectively avoid this complication, a certificate rating of 15 would prove most appropriate.
Analysis Of Texas Chainsaw Massacre Title Sequence
The opening of this film starts with the presence of eerie music which immediently builds suspence and gives the audience the impression that something not particually normal is either happening, happened or about to take place. The music involved in this scene works effectively as it not only creates a certain amount of tension amongst the viewers to prepare them for the events that are due to follow, but also compliments the low key lighting to ultimately generate a dark mysterious setting typical of a horror genre. The low key lighting is created by the use of candles, which also act as the key light. The candles during the title sequence create a gothic feel as they are mostly identified in churches and hold religious significance.
This title sequence is dependent on the use of photographs, a very simple yet effective decision as it makes the audience feels as if they are people told a story from a family photo album, making them more interested to proceed to find out about the storyline. The use of close-up shots on the photographs and news paper cut outs also helped to create a feeling of involvement towards the audience as if they are being shown the items personally. However, the camerawork was presented as very fast paced. The effect of this is that it dosen't reveal too much of the storyline and helps to also build tension and suspence, keeping the audience gripped and staying true to the horror genre.Other aspects that contributed to making this title sequence successful were the use of iconic and conventional horror figures. For example, blood.Blood is commonly connected with movies from the horror genre as there is usually always elements of death present within them. The other conventional aspects involved during this title sequence were the use of knives and chains. As the film title includes the word 'Chainsaw' this could also be a play-on aspect. The title of the film also suggests mass murder within the word 'Massacre' and therefore, the presence of knives are chains could help portray this idea and theme of muder further.Close-up shots of dead animals and newspaper cutouts involving the words 'Killing' and 'Murder' also help do this.
At the end of the title sequence, a photograph of a baby with a deformity, a cleft lip (which was also shown at the beginning of the title sequence) is being burnt. The connotation of this action is that it suggests the innocent baby in the photograph is nomore, and could infact imply that the baby is now of another form and plays some involvement into the murders that have been taking place as the photograph was shown at the both the beginning and end of the sequence.
Hustle Opening Sequence
Analysis Of Hustle
Hustle comtains elements used witih the iPod advert which eventually is the product we plan to produce with our short film coursework.
The opening credits of this television drams has acted as inpiration for our film and also provided us with a few ideas of which we would creatively change, and incorporate into our own work.
THIS BLOG DETAILS ALL THE INFORMATION SURONDING THE PRODUCTION OF MY FILM TITLE SEQUENCE.
