The Truth Is... Brainstorm

In Tuesdays lesson we produced a brainstorm on the content of our title sequence 'The Truth Is...' Sections we brainstormed were:

• Cast
• Camerawork 
• Setting
• Production Company 
• Distributor 
• Genre 
• Editing 
• Sound 
• Font ( text on screen ) 
• Make up & Props 

This Brainstorm is to give us an idea on what we would need to plan and get before filming the title sequence.

Original Film Plan

Today in our group we  thought of things we could do with the genre horror / thriller.  We brain stormed 3 possible ideas and locations for filming and some ideas we could use. these locations were; a graveyard; damson park and someones home. We decided that it may not only be difficult to shoot but also disrespectful if we did a zombie theme in a graveyard so we scrapped that idea. That is when we chose to use the Danson park idea but change it a little bit.

The new idea was a scary looking man whispering in a girls ear from behind as she is walking in the park but when she turns around no one is there. then she sees a man who looks old and he falls over she rushes to help him and he grabs her hand and transports her to an alternate universe. in the alternate universe she has to complete a series of tasks before she can get back to the normal world. the challenges test every skill and emotion she has but will she survive?

by the end of the lesson we had a plan for the title sequence, a title a 'pitch' presentation and even a plan/schedule for shooting the title sequence.

Roland Barthes Enigma Code

Barthes Engima code is a theory that suggest a text (weather that be television, film, a poster etc.) portrays a mystery to draw an audience in , pose questions and a such , become intrigued in the piece. For, instance, a murder mystery will often not reveal the identity of the murder until the end of the story, which passes the question "Who is the murderer".

Barthes theory of the five codes is a way of grouping signifiers according to the role they play in the text., these are categorised as:

The Hermeneutic Code

The voice of truth, this is an element in a story that is not explained and therefore, exits as an enigma for the reader ,raising questions.

The Proairetic Code

The voice of empires, adds suspense to the text and sequential elements of action in the text. Tension is built up and the audience is left guessing what happens next.

The Semantic Code

The voice of the perso. Semantic code points out to any element in a text that suggest an additional meaning by the way of connotation which the story suggest.

The Symbolic code

The voice of the symbol . It is similar to the Semantic code but is wider and deeper in meaning, which is done through the use of antithesis, were meaning rises out of conflict ideas.

The cultural code

The voice of knowledge. Looks at audiences wider cultural understanding morality and ideology.

 

Logo, Audience Profile, Codes and Conventions, Analysis of Title Sequence

In class we were given a set of four tasks to complete:

1. Research the codes and conventions of Romantic Comedy , and focus on title sequences.
2. Write an audience profile Primary and Secondary for your films target audience .
3. Analyse one sequence from chosen genre individually and one as a group. Not any features to include in own work.
4. Invent a production company and design a logo for it.

This is our production company's logo . As our production will be producing romantic comedy films we decided to go for a simplistic fairy-tale look.

Codes and Conventions:

• Target Audience - Young women or people who find themselves in this situation .
• Soft Romantic/ Ordinary everyday music 
• Begins with voice-over introducing characters
• Two Protagonist - Male & Female
• Cliche & Stereotypical on the idea of love.
• Color themes-  red ( represents love,sexuality, romance, & passion), white( represents innocence& purity) & pink( represents love, romance and femininity) 
•  Plot consists of the male protagonist falling for the female protagonist. 

Features to include in Title Sequence 

• Slow transitions 
• Natural setting
• Acoustic music 

Audience Profile 

I have decided to change the audience age range to 16- 23 because I  feel that our target audience may be younger than our initial target audience. 

Group Analysis

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Title Sequence 

The Perks of being a wallflower is a film based on the novel by Stephen Chbosky. It is about a 15 year old boy called Charlie. Charlie is an outsider in high school and struggles to make friends, especially after the suicide of his best friend & trying to cope with mental illness, this is until 2 seniors (Sam & Patrick) take him under their wing and help welcome him to the real world. The reason I have chose to analyse this title sequence is because some of the genres featured are similar to ones we are using in our film, for example, Romance & Drama. The first thing we see in the title sequence is the production companies names (Summit entertainment). We then see a black screen with 'summit entertainment presents' in typewriter font, in the background there is also the noise of someone typing on a typewriter, this suggests that the main character enjoys writing and maybe aspires to be a writer. This also suggests that a typewriter is going to be a key feature in the film, and something we can expect to see allot of. This is followed by 'a mr. mudd production', this is still sticking to the typewriter font & sound. The next thing to appear are the stars names. This may make the audience think of previous films these actors have been in and what their characters might be like and how different they may be compared to other films they have seen with this actor in it.  

 

The song 'Could it be another change?' by The Samples begins to play as the title appears. I think this song was chosen because the film is about being a 'wallflower' (a wallflower is  a shy or unpopular individual who doesn't socialize or participate in activities at social events) and by choosing a song that isn't popular goes along with the theme of the film. The title of the song also matches the film. Throughout the film the main character Charlie goes through allot of changes and discovers allot about himself, therefore the title of the song is extremely appropriate to what the film is about.  The title then fades into blackness and we begin to see moving lights, we can almost immediately assume these are in a tunnel. The fact that this location is featured suggests that it features once again in the film and is a key part for the audience to recognise. Later in the film we find out this location is of some importance to the 3 main characters and has an awful lot of meaning. The travelling through the tunnel continues as names of cast and crew appear on the screen in the typewriter font.  

 

After several shots of the tunnel we are met with darkness and then a reflection of the main character, Charlie, in a window.  We then hear Charlie speaking, it is obvious from the start that he is writing a letter to someone, however we aren't sure who, this is something that as an audience we will never find out. We find out allot about Charlie's character after a few seconds of hearing him. We discover that he has spent time in hospital, has very little self-confidence and is quite introverted. We then find out it is Charlie's first day at high school the next day, this tells us is he around 14/15 years old. There is then a shot of Charlie in the school hallway, this is where the title sequence ends, from this short amount of time we have been able to learn allot about Charlie and who he is. 

Saul Bass Notes

 Biography

1920 Saul Bass is born in the Bronx district of New York

1936 Wins a scholarship to study at the Art Students' League in Manhattan

1938 Employed as an assistant in the art department of the New York office of Warner Bros

1944 Joins the Blaine Thompson Company, an advertising agency, and enrolls at Brooklyn College, where he is taught by the émigré Hungarian designer and design theorist Gyorgy Kepes

1946 Moves to Los Angeles to work as an art director at the advertising agency, Buchanan and Company

1952 Opens his own studio, named Saul Bass & Associates in 1955

1954 Designs his first title sequence for Otto Preminger’s Carmen Jones

1955 Creates titles for Robert Aldrich’s The Big Knife and Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch. The animated sequence he devises for Preminger’s The Man with a Golden Arm causes a sensation

1956 Elaine Makatura joins the studio as an assistant

1957 Devises titles for Michael Anderson’s Around The World in 80 Days and Preminger’s Bonjour Tristesse

1958 Forges a new collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock by designing the titles for Vertigo. Works with the architects Buff, Straub & Hensman on the design of his home, Case Study House #20 in Altadena

1959 Creates the title sequences for Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder

1960 First title commission for Stanley Kubrick, Spartacus, and the last for Hitchcock, Psycho

1962 Devises titles for Edward Dmytryk’s Walk on the Wild Side and directs his first short film, Apples and Oranges. Marries Elaine Makatura

1963 Stanley Kramer commissions Bass to create titles for It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

1966 Directs the racing sequences and devises the titles for John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix

1968 Wins an Oscar for the short film Why Man Creates and develops a corporate identity programme for the Bell System telephone company. Creates an installation for the Milan Triennale, which is cancelled after a student occupation

1973 Designs the corporate identity of United Airlines

1974 Directs his first feature film Phase IV

1980 Designs the poster for Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and devises the corporate identity of the Minolta camera company

1984 Creates a poster for the Los Angeles Olympic Games

1987 James L. Brooks persuades Bass to return to title design by creating the opening sequence of Broadcast News

1990 Begins a long collaboration with Martin Scorsese by creating the titles for GoodFellas

1991 Devises the titles for Scorsese’s Cape Fear and a poster for the 63rd Academy Awards. Bass designs the Academy Awards poster for the next five years.

1993 Creates the title sequence for Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence and a poster for Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List

1995 Designs titles for Scorsese’s Casino

1996 Saul Bass dies in Los Angeles of non-Hodgkins lymphoma

Career

Saul Bass was born on May 8, 1920, in the Bronx, New York, United States, to Eastern European Jewish immigrant parents. He graduated from James Monroe High School in the Bronx and studied part-time at the Art Students League in Manhattan. He began his time in Hollywood during the 1940s doing print work for film ads, until he collaborated with filmmaker Otto Preminger to design a film poster for his 1954 film Carmen Jones. Otto Preminger was so impressed with Bass's work that he asked him to produce the title sequence as well. Bass was one of the first to realize the creative potential of the opening and closing credits of a movie. Bass became widely known in the film industry after creating the title sequence for Otto Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). Bass decided to create an innovative title sequence to match the film's controversial subject. For Alfred Hitchcock, Bass provided effective, memorable title sequences, inventing a new type of kinetic typography. Bass once described his main goal for his title sequences as being to ‘’try to reach for a simple, visual phrase that tells you what the picture is all about and evokes the essence of the story” He designed title sequences for more than 40 years, and employed diverse film making techniques.

Napoleon Dynamite Title Sequence Analysis



It is clear that the genre of this film is Comedy; you can tell this by the ambient lighting which creates a happy and enjoyable atmosphere. You can also tell it is a comedy film as the titles are made out of food and objects associated to the main character.The mise- en -scene in the sequence also helps to create the comedic genre.  My group and I will also use ambient lighting and in our title sequence as it makes the sequence look more realistic and believable to the audience.Only one shot type is used in the title sequence which is a point of view shot , this makes the audience feel as if they are in scene as the character Napoleon. The food and objects are placed in the middle of the camera which again makes the audience feel as if they are looking directly at the objects.The target audience of the film is teenagers. They have targeted this audience by using bright colours, bright lighting and also the unique style of the sequence. Most adults would not find this title sequence appealing as it seems immature.   
The film company "Fox Searchlight Pictures" is the first title shown followed by "Casting by" "Music by", "Edited by", "Production by", "Director of Photography",'Executive Producer", "produced by", "written by" and "directed by". Each title is on screen for 5 seconds and all are placed in the middle/centre  of the screen. In addition, the titles are either written on food with a sauce or on objects associated with the character. The story is told by the main character placing different plates of food (which we assume are his favourite meals) and objects in front of the camera with the titles on them. The audience has to rely on these objects to gain information about who is in the film and what the film is about. From the information given we can assemble that the film is about a high school student named Napoleon Dynamite, who is interested in books about space, toy cars, he is very tidy and likes drawing mythology creatures. This is done so that the audience have a clear understanding of the character .Both diegetic and non-diegetic sounds have been used. The diegetic sound is from the music playing in the background .The use of diegetic sound makes the audience feel as if they are in the film, however, the non-diegetic sound brings them back to reality.
After looking and analysing this title sequence it has given my group and I, ideas on working on a title sequence with no actors also how the simplicity of title sequence can be more affective.

Group Preseentaion ( Initial title sequence plan)

Presentation from leannacatherina

The Art of the Titles article notes

Words and lettering (fonts) played an enormous role in films of the silent era. Film titles and letter cards had to provide essential information to the audience. Big film studios began to employ typesetters in the production of title cards. As movies grew more popular, their titles evolved. During the 1920's and 30's , European cinema was deeply influenced by modernism and aspects of this visual sensibility were brought to America by filmmakers who were fleeing the Nazis.

Black letter fonts in the opening credits were used to evoke horror, ribbons and flowery lettering suggested love and typography that would have been used on 'Wanted' posters connoted a western flick. It could be argued that typography lost importance in the late 1960's in this era of title design. The imagery behind credits received a lot more attention. Popular trends were using three-dimensional lettering and embedding type in physical artifacts such as embroidery and signage. In contrast to Saul Bass often approached the lettering of a main title as he would a logo , making it function as the core element in a full marketing campaign.

The exponential of digital graphics and typography has attracted some of the most creative minds to motion design which includes Michael Curtis, Susan Bradley,Dave Nalle etc. Pixar and Disney have reserved crucial parts in branding of their film for the title sequences. Film titles have evolved with the film industry, as well as with social trends and fashion movements. Whatever function they perform , titles remain an essential part of film. The opening movements can make a deeply satisfying contribution to any film. 

Conventions of Title Sequence

Following the list above will help make the perfect Title Sequence 

Original Film Pitch

This week in our media lessons we were put into groups, in our groups we had to think of a film idea.
 Firstly in my group we discussed an idea for a horror film, the film would be set in a house where a man gets possessed by an evil spirit. We all agreed this could be quite hard to do and had already been done, but with females getting possessed, showing them as weak and vulnerable. We thought a male getting possessed wouldn't be as typical and could instead switch the roles with the male being shown as weak and vulnerable.
 Our second idea was a zombie film, it would be set in a graveyard and in a town where a man is visiting the graveyard to put flowers at his friends grave, in a twist the mans friend comes back to life as a zombie and the chase begins. We also agreed that this would be fairly hard to film and sounded fairly like every other zombie film. 
 Our last film idea and the one we decided was best was set in a park where a teenage girl was walking her dog, while she is walking her dog she begins to hear voices but soon notices there is nobody there. After a few minutes the girl is kidnapped and wakes up in a alternate universe. She soon realizes she has to get out of the world she is in and back to the real world, however to get back she has to complete several tasks in a given amount of time & pass the 'curse' onto someone else in the real world. Sadly the teenage girl doesn't complete the last task in time and is trapped in the alternate universe. We all agreed that this was the best idea and the one that was the most obscure.
 After we had discussed ideas and all agreed on a final idea, we had to create a pitch for our film. We used powerpoint to create multiple slides explaining our idea, who would star in our film, roughly how much we would spend creating the film, how much we would spend on advertisement etc, roughly how much it would make, when it would be released and who the target audience is.
The first slide included the name of the film, which we have changed to 'Alternate' since.
The second slide includes a few pictures of  films that are fairly similar to ours, for example, The Chronicles of Narnia, Pans Labyrinth & Heroes.
The third slide is some research we did into roughly how much the film would make and how much it would cost. We studied the film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. We found it made $291, 709, 845 and they spent $180, 000, 000 on the film in total, from this we decided how much we would like to spend on the film, which is what is on slide five.
 On slide four, we looked at the film super 8 and how much that made and what it cost etc. The budget was $50,000,000 and in total made $126, 975, 169. This also helped us to decided how much we would spend on our film.
 Slide six is the plot of our film. During this we decided this we decided who we would choose to play each character, We decided that the main character(the teenage girl) would be called Lucy and would be played by Amanda Seyfried. The girls brother would be called Jack and would be played by Ryan Reynolds. The stranger that takes her to the alternate universe would remain nameless and would be played by Benedict Cumberbatch, and the leader/queen of the alternate universe would be played by Tilda Swinton.
 The next slide is what the classification would be. We decided then it would be a 15, however after getting some feedback from the class we have changed it to a rating 12.

Audience Profile

Saul Bass Title Sequnce Analysis

Anatomy of A Murder

At the start of the sequence there is a silhouette of a body that has been decapitated. This connects with the film title “Anatomy of a Murder”, also there are fingerprints on the body which suggest that the film is about tracking down the owner or owners of these finger prints. The non-diegetic sound which sounds like 1950’s jazz band adds suspense and adventure to the sequence which engages with the audience in order to find out who the culprits are. In addition, the sound also suggests that the murder could be a wealthy person as in the 1950’s it was the rich that would listen to this type of music.  The dark greys, blacks and white, could foreshadow some scenes in the film will be unpleasant to watch. The title is laid on the top sections of the body which has been placed center of the frame. With the words "Anatomy" and "Murder". The typography chosen is similar to old fashioned papers and magazines. Furthermore, the limbs of the body is broken up into pieces constructing an anatomy taken place. This also suggest that there might be a murder during the film which makes the audience excited and curious.  The body parts are taken away from the screen individual which gives hints to who the body might belong to or the murderer. The scene cuts quickly and zooms in on the hands .

Film Pitch 2

After speaking as a group and with some advice from our teachers, we have decided to change our film idea. The reason we have decided to do this is because we had an excellent idea for a title sequence, however it did not  really go with the genre and style of our original film idea, but we thought the title sequence idea was too good not to use and  it was just easier to change our entire film idea.

The Truth Is...

Our new idea is a romance drama teen film. It starts with a young girl walking home, she takes the same route everyday & everyday a boy who walks the same way as her tried to pluck up the courage to talk to her. He eventually gets an excuse to talk to her when she drops her book. He gives it back to her & they start talking, they then begin to walk home with each other everyday and become best friends, however the only way they talk to each other in school is by exchanging notes through lockers because of their different social statuses. Her female best friend find out about the two of them and tries to ruin her reputation as one of the popular kids, she succeeds in ruining her social status and begins to bully her, the bullying mostly occurs on-line until she attempts suicide. When she eventually comes out of hospital she has to attend group therapy to help her recover, when she arrives she sees him. as the group begins discussing problems and how they can be overcome she finds out more about him than she ever could have. They stand up for themselves in school and all is resolved.

Secondary Reasearch

Codes & conventions of Romantic-Comedies

This image is taken from “Slideshare” and it shows the codes & convections of a romantic comedy.  Codes are groups of signs placed together with meaning, which can be divided into three categories- Technical, Symbolic and Written/Audio.

Technical

Technical codes are the ways which equipment is used to tell a story in media text. E.g camera work in a film, this include: shot size, long shot, mid shot, close, extreme close-up, sound, lighting etc.

Written Audio codes

Written codes refer to any written words that are shown on an image or film. These include: headings subheadings, subtitles, logos labels, font&size etc.

Symbolic

Symbolic codes can be decoded on a conational level. It can include: use of colour, lighting,  Juxtapositioning of objects and people. Furthermore symbols can signify things like: love, hate, power, stereotypes and inequality.

Codes and Conventions of a ‘Romcom’ movie:

- Appeals to anyone who has ever been in love or who hopes to be so soon.

- Characters in love are distracted and liable to do daft things – comedic value.

- The plot of a romcom will see an obvious couple taken through a series of

misadventures designed to keep them apart until the ending (usually when they

get married).

- Happy ending (marriage and children).

- Target audience: Young Women

- Plot involves male protagonist after female protagonist he fancies and having to overcome obstacles and rivals for her affection.

- Typical male and female, heterosexual relationships.

- Male protagonist offers comedic value due to his incompetence or struggle to attract female protagonist.

- Soft, romantic music.

- Stereotypical gender/sexuality roles.

- Attractive protagonists, particularly female.

- Very cliché and stereotypical of the idea of ‘Love’.

- Begins with introduction of 2 characters to fall or in love or the protagonist (male seeking woman).

- Twists to relationship, including a period where it seems the relationship is over until the end when they reunite and are happy together.

- Filmed in a big city/town location (e.g. London/New York)

- Flirting common throughtout film (usually one-way.)

- Costume is smart and sexy, appealing to the opposite sex.

- Soppy, light-hearted and lovey-dovey plot.

- Another male (usually more attractive, clever and wealthy) to compete for females attention, underdog eventually wins.

- Male protagonist fails in his attempts to be romantic.

- Unlikely couple from audience’s point of view at beginning of film, get together at end of film.

- Scenes of nudity, sex and intimacy.

- The colour red represents love, hearts, sexuality and passion.

- The colour white represents innocence, purity

- The colour pink represents love, romance and femininity.

Bibliography

http://pzizzi-suttonmediaas.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/codes-conventions-romcoms.html

http://kathrynsmediablog2.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/more-codes-and-conventions-of-romantic.html