Journal 31.01.14 - story board for title sequence

In todays lesson me, Laxmi and Aaron, started to plan the story board for our title sequence. One of the ideas we primarily came up with was that we would film the train of a brides dress sweeping down a church isle, as doing so the floor would merge into the image of a rail way track. However due to the lack of time we have in order to complete the title sequence, this would not be possible to edit. 

Another idea in which we thought of was using a polaroid camera and taking photos of a wedding setting allowing them to float down on a black background with hand written titles bellow the image, however the more we thought about this the more simple we felt in would be. 

Finally we come up with the idea of having the titles based around the bride getting ready on her wedding day, the shots would start with the bride sat at her vanity fixing her hair. Using extreme close-up's we would then film the bride applying her make-up such as mascara. Then panning down slowly to her lips and applying red lipstick. We chose the colour red purposely as the colour red connoted sex and romance, therefore giving the audience a hint into what the film is about with out suggesting too much. The camera then moving slowly to then vanity surface itself to reveal to the audience two train tickets and red nail polish in which the female character applies and then blows dry. From this the camera will then pan left to a bed post in which would have a males black tie hanging off, panning up from this to an unmade bed, giving the suggestion of sex, perhaps even hinting slightly at an affair. The next shot will be of the bed side table with will have a photo of a happy couple placed next to it an engagement ring, in which the bride to be picks up again and places back onto her finger, therefore hinting again at the idea of an unfair and she has been unfaithful, from this her hand will move up to the image of the happy couple in which she places her hand on and pushes it face down onto the surface. This suggests to the audience that she no longer wants to marry her fiance. 

This is the story boarding idea we come up with: 

Codes and Conventions Romantic Comedy Genre

We established the codes and conventions of the Romcom genre and displayed them in the presentation below. This will help us when we are creating our title sequence as we will follow these codes and conventions and incorporate them into our title sequence. 

RomCom brainstorm from shiyanil

In our title sequence we will be following these codes and conventions however we are going to sub convert some of them and go against the conventions such as not including a voice over. In addition to this starting the title sequence from the males perspective instead of the females. One of the conventions that we are following is the location as our piece is set in the city. 

Production Company Logo

Before creating our title sequence we had to create a production company. We came up with many suggestions such as
xoxo productions 
runaway love films 
etc. 

In the end we decided the best name for the production company was Romway films as it includes the idea that the films produced by our production company are Romcoms, therefore establishes the genre of our film and title sequence to the audience. 

The above image was just our starting point when designing the production company logo. From this we adapted our logo to look like this. This was due to some of the feedback we received from Sinead, she thought the concept of the first logo was good however could be improved with a better design, such as a hand drawn love heart. From this we created the new logo by hand drawing out the heart and then scanning the image onto the compute editing it in photoshop to add the production company title and then uploading it onto our blogs. we felt this new logo had a more personal feel due to the hand drawing of the heart. 

Roland Barthes- Enigma Codes

" All narratives share structural features that are brought together in different ways"

Barthes view is that although there is differences between narratives they all have a limited number of structure and organisation, that may effect or adapt the readers way of interpreting the texts these are known as Enigma codes. 

Barthe believes that there is always more that one way in which the audience can interpret/read a text, in addition to this he also believes that within a set text there is a number of different meanings and interpretations instead of just one set one. He believes that the only way to understand the texts true meaning is by reading it and then reading it again. This is because every time you read a text you may read it a different way to a which you read it the first time, therefore another meaning comes to surface.

Barthe believes that the audience should have a "writerly" approach when reading the text instead of a "readers" approach, in order to understand it fully. Barthe believes the audience should read a text for its linear plot and be controlled by it. Furthermore he argues that we should take the existence of these codes as a invitation to adapt and read the text in order to bring out the different meanings and connotations within it. 

Readerly Texts 

Barthe believes that most texts are "readerly texts" these are texts that are usually presented in the usual linear form this is the traditional forma and it simply gives the audience information so that they can receive it. These texts are usually written in the simplistic form in order for the text to give away another other multiple meanings. 

Writerly Texts 

These texts reveal the content that the readerly texts try to convey, therefore giving the texts multiple meanings. From these texts the audience are now in a position where they can read and adapt the texts giving it different meanings. 

Barthe believes that everything the audience view have a purpose behind it and include a certain element within them to intrigued the audience and draw them in. 

The Narrative/ Enigma codes.

Barthe has a theory that there are five codes that will group together signifiers by the role they act out in a text.

These are the :

The Hermeneutic Code- Voice of Truth 

- This is when the element of the story is not fully exposed to the audience, leaving it open as a mystery, leaving questions unanswered to the viewers.

The Proairetic Code- the voice of empirics 

- This builds tension, this is by leading onto another event or action that may take place, opening the audience up to the question, Whats going to happen next?

The Semantic Code- the voice of the person 

-This refers to the connotations within the story, which will give another meaning or multiple meaning to whats taking place on the screen. 

The Symbolic Code- the voice of the symbol

-This is similar to the semantic meaning, however it is broader and can open the viewer up to a wider meaning.

The cultural Code- Voice of Knowledge 


- This refers to anything that cannot be challenged and is assumed to be a element of truth.

In my sequence i am going to use enigmas to suggest to my audience the plot of the film. In my title sequence i am going to use The Hermeneutic Code, at the ending of the sequence, when Aaron gets hit by a moving vehicle, the screen will cut to darkness and the only indication that he has been hit will be the sounds of the crash, the audience will then have unanswered questions as to whether or not his character survives. Also due to the two main characters never meeting the audience are left over to whether the couple meet and fall in love and get their happy ending therefore another enigma involved is The Proairetic code. 

Journal 24.01.14 change of initial title sequence idea to Romcom

In todays lesson me Laxmi and Aaron, have changed our original genre from horror to Romcom. The plot of the story has further more changed . 

The title for our project is called Train Affairs, the plot behind this is the story of a male and female City office workers to first encounter each other on their commute to work on the busy south eastern service to London Charing Cross Station,London. At first the pair do not converse, however there is a strong attraction towards each other, this is shown to the audience through voice overs of what each character is thinking. 
eventually the pair are seated next to each other one morning and the male character asks the female character out on a date. However the male character does not show up to this date and the female character is left feeling angry,rejected and dissapointed. It turns out that the male character was involved in a tragic accident in which he was unable to make their date, from this accident he was left with memory loss, meaning he forgot who he was, who she was and all about their date. However as the years go by the man starts to regain his memory, one day remembering about the girl he fell in love with on the train. In one last hope to regain their relationship and her love he takes a chance and gets the train they used to see each other on of a morning on the way to work, in hope she still gets it. To his surprise he finds her, she is still sat in the same carriage as she did all those years ago. He goes over to her, she does not look to happy to see him but at the same time is also shocked. After explaining to her why he was unable to attend their date, she sympathizes with him. However now she is married and has moved on. However her love for him and lust is still therefor. Therefore she arranges to meet him after work, from this a affair begins. Will they end up together? will she leave her husband ? is the unanswered question. 

In the lesson we brainstormed different ways in which we could create a title sequence for this. we decided one idea we all liked was using a wedding theme to present this. perhaps using place cards and seating plans etc to display the titles. Also using a wedding cake and figures such as the bride and groom dolls and knocking the groom over and changing him for another groom doll, in order to foreshadow to the audience the upcoming events that will take place. Moreover there will also be train tickets present in order to hint at the setting of where the two characters first meet. We will also use many different props in order to hint at the plot of the story. We have decided that we will look at other films such as Vanilla Sky's, the wedding planner, 27 dresses etc in order to inspire our title sequence. 

originally we was going to base our title sequence around the genre of romance, however our research showed us that the general conventions of a romance film is that they do not have title sequences therefore we adapted our genre to Romcom. 

Karin Fong

In this presentation we looked at the work of other title sequence designers such as Karin Fong, looking into her background, work and also analyzing some of her previous title sequences.

karin fong(Aaron,Hayley and Laxmi) from shiyanil

Analysis of Saul Bass 'North by NorthWest'

From this title sequence the viewer can learn that the film is set in the late 90's perhaps 1950's, this is indicated by the development of transport in relation to the modern day transport services, further more by the clothing that the cast within the title sequence are dressed in. The audience also learn that the setting of the film is in the USA in particular New york city, this is due to the industrialized background and the business of the business like atmosphere.  

I think that in this film the main character may have some bad luck i interpreted this from the scene at the very end of the title sequence when the bus doors shut directly in one of the male characters faces, perhaps also hitting at a theme of rejection.  

The use of the upbeat music in the title sequence suggests that the film is going to be quiet fast paced and perhaps action based related. This hints to the audience that the genre of the film is action and could also be thriller, i think this is suggested through the clip of the flowing stream, as i evokes images that relate to a thriller based genre such as bodies or even sins being washed away. More importantly as the stream is continuously flowing it also suggested to me that the main character is perhaps running away from something or someone. The use of the stream also could be in relation to the sea, therefore perhaps hinting that the film may involve foreign relations or soils. 

Saul Bass

"I want to make beautiful things even if nobody cares."

1920-1996

Saul Bass was a graphic designer, he became famous for his work in the film and classic logo design.

Saul Bass studied design at Art student League, Manhattan.

In his title sequences Bass uses simple shapes and images to capture the mood and atmosphere.

During Bass's 40 year career he worked with many Hollywood names such as Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese.

Not only did Bass create film posters he later moved on to animate and direct title sequence. During his working career Bass has created more than 60 title sequences. 

Bass's most recognized title sequence is "The Man With The Golden Finger" (1995) which was based on a jazz musicians struggle to overcome his Heroin addiction.

Bass liked to "making the ordinary extraordinary" this can most clearly be seen in the title sequence of 'Walk on the Wild Side' (1962)

Bass revolutionized the way in which people viewed credit titles. Bass created short visual metaphors or story that would intrigue the viewer.
Bass's parents where european Jewish immigrants. He graduated from the James Monroe high school and then later worked part time at the Art Students League.  His time began in Hollywood in the 1940's in which he did print work for film ads. From this point he then collaborated with filmmaker Otto Preminger in which he helped to design a film poster for his film Carmen Jones (1954), due to his good first impression with Otto he also asked Bass to create the title sequence for the film. Using this opportunity Bass changed title sequences forever, creating a mood and atmosphere for the audience in the first moments of the title sequence.

From viewing some of Saul Bass's title sequences i have learned the importance of title sequences. Some of the techniques Saul Bass has used i would like to incorporate into my title sequence. perhaps transitioning between slides using the block techniques which could slide down off the screen, moving into the next clip.

Train Affair

In this presentation we are explain the plot of our film and further more other films that follow in the same genre, looking at their production costs, budget and how much the film made at box office. Also looking at other factors such as the talent. From this research we gained an idea of how much would need to budget for our film, an estimation of how much the film will make at box office and also what kind of actors we would need to look into when casting. 

Train Affairs (Laxmi, Aaron and Hayley) from shiyanil

Feedback: 

From our presentation we received positive feedback from Sinead, she liked our title sequence and the plot however thought we could have done so more research into the director we was going to use, this was from our first initial presentation from that we created the above presentation going into more detail and research on the points she raised.

Journal 10/01/14 - Title Sequence Analysis

In today's lesson we looked at title sequences. Using Art of the Title i selected a title sequence in 

in this case i used 21 Jump Street and using a time line, mapped out the entire opening sequence

for each title that appeared i noted down what was said and at what second it appeared in the sequence. 

From doing this task i realised how many titles there actually are in a title sequence, i thought they're may have only been about fifteen however they seem to be going up to the thirty and forties. Therefore this has made us consider the amount of titles we will need in our title sequence. 

Task 2 - G321 Analysis of Napoleon Dynamite

Napoleon Dynamite

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/napoleon-dynamite/

From this title sequence the viewer can see that the film is going to be perhaps a comedy, this is due to the sound track and also the use of food for the opening credits. The audience can also tell that the film is going to be based on a teenager, in particular a teenage boy, the audience are led to believe this by the student ID card that is present.

 This idea is further more established by the food used in the title sequence, most of the food used is unhealthy food such as burger and chips and there is also peanut butter sandwiches in a brown bag which is commonly associated with a school lunch. 

The use of the ambient sound at the beginning of the birds tweeting indicates to the audience that the film is set in a suburban rural area in the united states. The use of the Alien insurance card and the drawings of gladiators informs us that this film may have an element of sci-fi and that also the teenager boy is categorized as the high school "geek", this is further more made evident by the use of the library books.
The use of the UFO abduction insurance card suggests that the film is going to be a spoof of the sci-fi genre. This film also carries the conventions of a comedy title sequence as it shows the life of the "nerdy" character therefore this help the audience to identify with the comedy genre. 

The audience is also informed that the film may be set in a high school this is due to the presence of the protractor, pencils and rubber.

From the title sequence of the film the audience also assume the film is going to be light hearted, this is due to the logo and the titles being illustrated on the food in different types of sauces, adding a comical effect to the sequence. 

The mise-en scene of the title sequence also gives it a light hearted feel, the lighting plays a huge role in this as through out the sequence the lighting is ambient which allows the audience to believe the film is set in real-time and is slowly unfolding.  The purpose of the comedy genre is to make people relate it with their own lives, so it follows the conventions of Blumler and Katz, as many of the audience will be able to relate with the main characters life, as they be able to relate it back to their past experiences during childhood.

Another aspect which the audience are able to relate to in the title sequence is the setting. The title sequence is set in various different rooms within a house, one room with a tiled floor another with a carpet, this makes it seem more naturalistic and realistic. meaning the audience will relate the film back to their own lives and experiences.

The title sequences are always portrayed on one object which is set upon a plain background, this adds to the idea of the comedy genre as commonly in comedies the opening titles are always made to appear very striking and eye catching. 

Most importantly most of the shots in the sequence are high angle, this is important as it allows the audience to pay attention only to the image portrayed in front of them. It also creates the effect that the audience is superior to him as it is as if they are looking down on him.

The target audience of this film is teenagers, this is shown most clearly by the objects used that teenagers are familiar with in their own everyday lives such as the ID card and the maths equipment. 

Fromt the title sequence alone the audience can learn a lot about the narrative of the film, we learn the film is based on a  teenage boy named Napoleon Dynamite, who is considered a "nerd", his character also seems to interested in books on space and science. We are also presented with his drawings of gladiators which informs us that his character may have a immature side to him.

There is non-digetic and diagetic sound used in the title sequence which commences 22 seconds into the sequence, these sounds match in with the light hearted atmosphere and also the lyrics of the soundtrack being played fits in with what the audience are seeing on the screen, further more the lyrics also relate to school life and also a teenagers life.

Task 1- The Title Sequence Era

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/04/the-art-of-the-film-title-throughout-cinema-history/

After reading this article, five main key points i have picked out and found interesting where how during the silent era, in order to show the genre of the film the designers would liked "to convey the tone of a movie through the “dressage” of its main title. Thus, blackletter 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."  This would have established the genre of the film to its audience as they would become familiar with these fonts and begin to associate them with particular genres.

Another thing i found to be interesting was how Saul Bass's title sequence for The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) then inspired Susan Bradley's Title sequence for Monsters, Inc. (2001) as when watching the title sequence i could notice similarities throughout the title sequence such as the music at the beginning, and also the use of animation.

"While Cooper was working on the sequence for “Darkness Falls” (2003), some glass he was using suddenly split, and the crack cut across the eyes of a girl in an old picture. The incident added suspense to the effect." This interested me as it presents how one tiny mistake lead to a complete change in the media film title editing, as this significant event completely changed the horror genre. Just by this the glass accidentally  cutting the picture it has revolutionized, title sequences forever, this relates to title sequences such as Se7en and how the effect of the cutting and slicing of film in that creates a dark and dangerous atmosphere and mood in that, setting the audience up for the rest of the film.

From the title sequence of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) it gives the audience an indication of how the film is going to play out and the significant events that follow, from the title sequence the audience can learn that the film is set in Hollywood the character is going to lead a glamourous lifestyle and within the film someone will be killed, this person being a woman.

Typography also plays a huge role in title sequences as the audience begin to associate certain types of font with production studios, the most famous for this is Walt Disney, instantly when a viewers see's the Walt Disney font they know this is a Disney film and also perhaps an animation film.

At the beginning of title sequences simple techniques where used such as simply holding up postcard with the names of the crew and cast etc. These cards where also used in the era of silent cinema, to present dialogue between the talent. From this the title sequences developed as studios started investing more money into new techniques in order to gain back and their audiences. As a result of this new instrumental music was being incorporated in the beginning of the films shortly leading to the invention of titles being over-layed onto the opening sequence of the films, shortly this leading to Saul Bass's influence on the animation of the titles sequences. In the early stages of the 21st century some directors decided to incorporate title sequences into their film and some discarded of the idea.

Journal 09/01/14 - First initial plan for title sequence

In today's lesson we arranged our groups, in which we will work in to create our opening title sequence. Currently i am working with Aaron, Lucy and Laxmi. We discussed what genre we was going to focus on when making our title sequence and also the story line behind it, in order to create a presentation for Monday's lesson, pitching our film idea.

So far we have decided that our title sequence is going to be based on the Genre Horror/Thriller. The location for shooting has been discussed and we decided the best place to shoot the title sequence would be in the woods. 

The concept behind our title sequence is that two little girls have a doll, which one day leads them into the woods to play, this doll is possessed. Once in the woods the children are unable to leave as the woods have taken over them, they become dehumanized, disorientated and lost. 

The title sequence will show two little girls clutching the doll walking through the woods. They will appear to the audience as being disconnected with civilization and lack all human expression and emotions. The scenes will show the two little girls wondering through the woods and also a brief scene of them playing the childhood game "patter cake". 

When filming this title sequence we are going to select various different camera shots such as extreme close-up, close-ups and wide establishing shots in particular to create the atmosphere and mood for the viewer.
Editing such as jumps cuts will also be used to disorientate the title sequence therefore adding to the effect of it being a horror film. We will also used face pace editing and distorted nursery rhymes to create this effect on the viewer. 

Continuity Editing

The story behind this is two people are going speed dating. The male character in this sequence is over confident and cocky whereas the female character is not impressed by this and wants to leave as soon as possible.
We used shot reverse shot to show the conversation between the two characters and also a over the shoulder shot to portray this. We also used a "match on action shot" and a "cutaway shot". These are found at the beginning  of the sequence when the male character is about to enter the room.
We used a "shot reverse shot" on the door scene as it showed the anticipation of both characters on either side of the door. 

From doing this continuity sequence i have learned that there are a lot more techniques involved in the editing stage than i first thought. Involving re-shooting scenes in order to get the right angle, the focus of the lens to ensure the image is of a good quality. Furthermore the piecing together of the soundtrack and the sequence in order to make sure that they fit together perfectly. 
From this process i have gained more skills using Film cut pro and photoshop which will help when creating my own title sequence.