Thursday, 31 January 2013
Evaluation of our preliminary task
Monday, 28 January 2013
Friday, 25 January 2013
What I will take from my research
Films such as ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ are very creative with their
credits in the opening title sequence. This has showed my group and I that we
could be more creative with our titles rather than simply superimposing text
upon the moving images.
The opening title sequence of ‘Twilight’ introduces the audience
to several genre conventions of horror such as a dark woods and vampires. This
will be key in the production of our opening title sequence as we must create a
storyline- this means we must establish a genre.
With our production being an independent film we must take note
of other independent films who often credit actors later on as they are not likely
to capture the audience being less-known. We must credit the ‘biggest names’
first. In this case it’ll be the fictional production company.
With our opening title sequence having to introduce characters
we could follow films such as Twilight who credit the actors whilst showing
shots of them on screen.
The score or ambient sound in our opening title sequence must
match the genre/happenings of our film. I learnt this from analysing the
opening titles of the 2000 film ‘Billy Elliot’- the lyrics of the score being
“I was dancing”. This relates directly to the film being about a young boy who
ballet dances.
The opening title sequence of St Trinians showed me how films
can not only use the opening titles to credit the members of production but to
introduce the genre, setting and start the story.
What I have learnt from looking at the opening title sequences
After analysing five different title sequences I made several
observations and noted differences between the Hollywood Blockbusters and
independent films.
All films (both blockbusters and independent films)
- Credit the production companies
- Credit some actors
The Hollywood blockbuster films tend to:
- Credit several actors’ names before we get the title of the film
- Credit the director’s name nearer the beginning of the opening title sequence
This is usually because these bigger budget films have large
production budgets. This budget enables the production companies to access
high-profile actors. These high profile actors can create a ‘pre-sold-audience’
because of their fans. The actors being a key reason as to why the public may
chose to watch this film can mean that they’re credited early on. It can be noted that the ‘biggest’ actors or
the actors with the most credits themselves are mentioned first. Well-known
award-winning directors such as Steven Spielberg are often credited early on as
they too are ‘big names’.
Independent films
- Credit several organisations who have provided funding
- Credit several different smaller production companies who have helped in the production
- Credit the writers (this is not usually key in blockbusters)
The reason that several production companies are credited rather
than one conglomerate is because independent film producers will have to look
outside of their production teams for editing professionals, for example.
Whereas media conglomerates such as ‘Marvel Entertainment’ own multiple
subsidiaries under their name to help in the production meaning that only one
name is credited.
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