Film Title Design: Research

Before the 1950's film titles were not very often, or if they were, low quality. But this all changed when sound in films was introduced and titles began to get more elaborate. And then since the 1960's it became an art form in itself, with many critics claiming "Forget the film and watch the titles." There are even a number of blogs/websites that just talk about film titles alone now. One of these is Art Of The Title: http://www.artofthetitle.com/ that gives a history on the titles, reviews and interviews with the people who made them. Well worth having a look at.

Here is a clever video that shows some of the most iconic titles in film making.

Most all film titles have some form of stylised, written words that flow with the film. Typography word coming from the greeks with typos-form and graphe-writing. The end products for alot of typography can be beautiful and this is also considered art now too, with alot of modern artists basing their work around words.

Here is the opening credits to a thriller: The Purge

Overall it really does the film justices and is very visually pleasing. The music is un-conventional giving a sort of comedy element to the opening. However if I have one thing to pick at, it would be the placement of the typography. It would have been clever to have the names appear as part of the already visual text 'security cam' bars. The shots used in this all give the audience a sense of what they are about to see and to some it may be off putting but other may have gotten more interested in it.

So to be quite honest, when I look at titles everything just sort of has to fit together for me. No edging your way round something and also needs to draw me in as a viewer.

Production Team!

So we've settled on a production team name and a (basic) logo, to produce our thriller.

Without further ado, we are, Reflection Studios!

REFLECTION STUDIOS

(Robbie, Lucy and Charlotte)

We decided to call ourselves 'Reflection Studios' as it includes our 3 initials (RLC) in the same word. After a while, we had a light bulb moment and thought "REFLECTION!" this lead us onto our idea for an ident we have that out initials will be 'reflected' onto a lake. We think that this name represents us and our production well as it symbolizes our abilities to create ideas that bounce of and reflect the others views on how something should be.

Film Distribution In The UK

Distribution of a film, is how the film is released and retailed. The film goes through a number of steps when distributed to make sure the film is accessible to the target audience and the worldwide network.

Here's a little animation about how films are distributed in the UK:

Thriller Opening Investigation

As part of my research for thriller openings I analysed two pieces of real media openings. The Black Swan and Sweeny Todd. Here are some screencast's of the two openings with my narrated deconstruction:

Here's an interesting theory that we've come across, that no matter how many film there are in the world they all are variations of 22 main stories. Here is a good little illustration that explains the 22 story paths:

Choosing A Genre To Work With

As a group many of us have been thinking about what genre of film we would be working with for the rest of the year. We researched some films and thought about what the pros and cons of each genre could be. Like this:

And then as a class we compiled all our data together thinking about all the complications and triumphs that can happen with each genre and decided that we would work with the 'Thriller' genre. This is due to the capability of creating something of good quality worth some of the highest marks we are hoping to get for our course. 

Positives of Thrillers: 

• Realism and Realistic Elements
• Set/Props/Costume all relatively easy to assess
• Straight Forward Editing
• Draws Audience In

Negatives of Thrillers:

• Hard to fit action into 2 minuets of coursework

There turned out to be alot more positives for choosing a Thriller over everything else from both the creative side and the filming/acting side of it. So hopefully we chose this genre wisely and our coursework will be the best it can be. Now onto thinking of possible narratives!

Researching Advanced Camerawork: Crane Shots

Here is an example of a crane shot we filmed in class:

This was our first time at filming with a crane to create this type of shot, and for a first attempt at something it's fair to say that it wasn't too bad. It may be a little shaky and rough round the edges (Sometimes the individual being filmed went out of shot) but it got across the idea of how a crane shot is used and what it looks like. Hopefully we will work on this and create are more fluid and better quality crane shot in the near future.

This shot is often used in soaps and drama's when someone leaves a place of significance to the character. Giving a high view on what they are leaving behind.

Manual Focussing

Two key terms that are often used when filming Manual Focus shots are:

Depth Of Field: Depth Of Field is the term used for the distance between the object/s that are closest and furthest away in the foreground and background of the shot.

Focus Pull: Focus Pull is the technique used that transfers the focus of the shot from one object to another.

Here is an example from an actual piece of  media:

During this sequence there is a large number of focus pulls, and manual focusing. It especially becomes clear at around 2:30 while Harry is looking at his mom and 2:40 when Niall looks at his Brother. I think this is an excellent example of how the technique is used and suits the video brilliantly.

Here Some Examples of Manual Focus Pulling 

Manual focussing is a technique used in film making, while the camera is rolling to focus and un-focus accepts of the frame and footage. This technique can be used often  to make the audience focus on a certain things in the frame.