First Ideas

I partnered up with Georgia in this task, we originally thought of doing a teen drama movie, but we soon decided it sounded a bit cheesy or many others would do the exact same thing, we talked and eventually came onto the idea of a psychological horror movie, like Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project where the horror comes from your mind, and isn't just randomly stabbing and killing people like in so many films today.

We have began to research into this, and we are going to be looking at the film starts in more detail when we get the opportunity.

From Concept to Screen: How does the Credit Sequence from Dexter Work?

This credit sequence has a very large amount of creative ideas, which generally stems from the thought that all things, no matter how normal they seem have a violent undercurrent in some way or form. The sequence emphasises that very well. Eric Anderson, the Creative Director had an idea about crime scene's, not all blood and guts, dead bodies and weapons, etc, but more so about the feel of the photograph's felt, how it has it's own visual language, it all had a very mundane, yet sinister feel to it, which is exactly what he wanted.
As they talked about the show, etc, with the creators, Anderson was noting down ideas as they went along, he nearly instantly thought of the title sequence having the word 'Dexter' upside down, as the concept was similar to Dexter himself, the word upside down looks almost exactly the same, and that's the same with the character, he isn't all that different as a murderer, no huge change actually happened. The sequence itself emphasised this darker meaning about Dexter in a simple yet complex way, I've never seen anything like it before in the opening credits, it makes it stand out so well. It makes everything normal into something violent, cutting an egg open  to eat it seems violent, the way the sauce blurts out like a sudden spray of blood really backs up the violent imagery, however, it shows that the violent side is underneath, as the music is much more playful and bubbly in comparison to the original music chosen. It doesn't simply fixate him as an evil man and nothing else, it allows room for other things also, to show he could also be a normal person. However, it could also connote that violence could be exciting to him, and that with everything he does he wishes for it, which is why his actions seem that angry all the time, but generally, I think that everybody could see the sinister side to this. Also, when he leaves the flat/house he is wearing very normal clothes, just a plain, baby blue shirt, which doubles up the idea of him being a normal guy, but yet again, you can still tell there's something slightly not right, he has this devious look in his eyes and a somewhat sinister smirk spread across his lips, it's a fairly bright contrast to what he's wearing, which are all soft colours, nothing dark or scary.

Within the scene, there is a large amount of scenes with noir lighting and a shallow depth of field, this is used to add to the atmosphere of this piece, it focuses the light on the object we're looking at (in the picture to the right, the fruit) and the depth of field only allows us to see what he's doing, it emphasises on the violent manner of which he is doing it, the insides of the fruit gushing out like blood and guts, the crimson insides of it adding to the look of it.

Research: Analysis of the Opening of Juno

Juno is very good at it's opening sequence in many ways. It begins with her walking down a street, then, as she walks behind a tree, the whole images changes from reality to a cartoon, including her, and then the credits begin, it shows that she is almost lost stuck in her own bubble, and that the world isn't very real to her yet, she still sees it through a child's eyes. It instantly shows the first production company, 'Fox Searchlight Pictures' which is Fox's attempt at an 'indie' film production. Within moments, a non-diegetic music begins, it is a very odd song, especially for a typical teenager to be listening to, it's very bubbly and unusual, yet the lyrics say 'If I'd be a tree, you be the leaves', this hints at a romance within this bubbly, teenage world, but in a very innocent and almost naive way, connoting to me that it my be a 'coming of age' journey in this film with the help of romance. The bottle of Sunny Delight in her hand also suggests at a child-likeness to her, as it is often thought of as children who drink Sunny D.
Her clothes aren't very extravagant, and her hair is tied back into a loose knot, it shows that she isn't too bothered by her appearance, she doesn't make too much of an effort, she seems a bit of a tomboy, but she is still fairly bright and stands out in comparison to the rest of the background, which is dull and drab, even more so when in it's cartoon form.
Soon enough there is a close up of her shoes on the floor, with leaves scattered around her, the leaves are a fairly dull brown, and her shoes are very average for an American teenager, it shows that her life is rather dull and that whilst she is different to other teenagers, she isn't extraordinary in any way, just a little odd.

Soon enough she's walking down the road and in the background you can see a few people in a sports kit running past her, they don't seem to even notice her, they could possibly be the stereotypical 'jocks' America always seem to have. She doesn't seem to mind too much that they don't even notice her, conveying that she doesn't have have any real wish to join in with the trends of others, that she is her own person, which we as a society like to see in our TV and films.

Towards the end of the start up credits, she can be seen to be balancing on the curbs in a very childlike manner and being off in her own world (yet again). She seems particularly care free, despite the fact that she is soon to be going to buy a pregnancy test(as we later find out), this possibly connotes naivety, she may not understand the seriousness of the situation, the mise-en-scene - the park - adds to the thought of her being childish and rather immature still, in a loveable way, which is why this film is thought of as so great, the start up credits stands out amongst so many others, so the creators did their job very well.

Research: Key Conventions

In research of the Key conventions, we have watched several movie openings, we watched 'Search for a Mignight Kiss', 'Brick', 'London to Brighton', 'Shifty', and 'Kick Ass', as we watched we wrote notes on the conventions of an opening to help for a later date.

One of the main points of the opening credits is to introduce us to the main cast and the crew, very often including the genre of the film, for example, in Kickass the Main Character voiced over and we could see somebody attempting to be a superhero, to set in motion what the film would be about, it also shows us how the narrative may work out, that we may have a narrator at points and that it should be fairly linear, as we're starting from before he became a Superhero, we also find out about Dave, and how he explains himself it shows that he is deprived of female attention and that it is nearly constantly on his mind, it is probably the main thing he talks about in the sequence, its a key convention that the film tells us about the character, even if its something his everyday friends don't know, we will.

Obviously, there is always the 'credits' of people involved in the film, very often shown in simple text in white, to make it stand out and easy to read, it shows the Production companies, the direction, the key actor, and sometimes even editors, costume designed, etc, but this is rarer occurance.

Opening sequences can often use enigma codes, which is show in Brick to make us, the audience question what is happening, much like an ellipsis, we don't know what's happened and we want to find out, how is this girl injured?. The sequences often introduce key aspects to the characters' personality when showing the main character, in 'Brighton to London' it makes it clear just how desperate the two characters are, that the mother has to sell her body to a man just to make enough money for a train fare, it tells us about them, we will already have ideas about them.

Of course, at some stage in the title sequence there will always say the title of the film, for example, in Kickass, the camera moves to the back of the Taxi, showing the licence plate as 'Kick Ass', this introduces the film to us and in Brick it has a very simple, white lettering on a black background.

There is often some kind of non-diegetic music within the start up sequence to show the flow of the film and often helping us with the genre of the film, in an example in the film Juno, when the rather spacey, bubbly music comes on, it shows that it's probably going to have lots of light hearted moments and the lyrics hint at a romantic comedy, it influences on the main characters personality, showing us about how she might be, still rather childish inside. We wouldn't use a heavy metal song for a romantic comedy, it just wouldn't fit, it's supposed to set the scene, it'd give completely wrong ideas about what the film would be.

Main Task

We will be filming the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes. The main purpose is to assess our ability to plan and construct media products with use of the appropriate technical and creative skills.

 There will be a hundred marks, 20 of those marks are from the research and planning, another 20 is from the evaluation and the final 60 is from the final product.

The Research Deadline is for the 26/11/10, the Photo-Storyboard deadline is for the 3/12/10, the filming deadline for 07/01/11, the Production Deadline for the 28/01/11 and the salutation for the 11/02/11