How does your media product represent particular social groups?

There is no real social group in our title sequence as it involves only a serial killer. Instead, I will show the small group of killers and how they are represented. Killers are fairly rare in reality but within the movie world, they are constantly being refined and looked into in hope for the most realistic and original killer possible. Some of the best movies that have been produced involve killers such as "The Godfather", "Shawshank Redemption"or even "Silence of the Lambs". There is massive interest in killers so we used to our advantage in multiple ways.

Killers in society are usually the way they because they are psychotic. This meant that we wanted to bring this psychotic representation into our title sequence which we did by using an effect called "Bad TV" which made the title sequence look like it was changing channels on an old TV set. This created the perfect effect for our title sequence as it connoted the rapid and chaotic mind of the killer.

In films and programmes that involve a serial killer, the identity of the killer is not usually shown early on in the film but is instead later on. We used this in our title sequence as we wanted the identity of the killer to be a surprise. To ensure this, we used extreme close-ups and close-ups of only the killers body from his chest down. This meant that no one would know the identity of the killer until later on in the film.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Our target audience for our film is white, British males and females. In order for us to attract this audience to watch our film we had to make sure that we included features in our title sequence that would grab their attention instantly and continue their interest throughout the title sequence. To create this interest our group made our title sequence have a dark and gritty effect, created using low key lighting, close-ups and also the violent actions which we showed our killer doing such as strangling a young girl.

Another massive part of our title sequence attracting our target audience was the sound that we used. Sound plays a huge role in attracting the audience as it helps to create suspense and also gives a dark and aery atmosphere to the title sequence. Along with sound, cinematography and lighting was also vital to our title sequence as it applies emotions to it which creates a heavily needed mood for this movie genre

Evaluation- Using and Learning About New Technologies

For our title sequence, editing was a huge factor and needed to be perfect in order for our work to turn out the way that we wanted it to. So that we could get the end product that our group desperately wanted, we had to use some technologies that no one in our group had used before such as Bullet Time Looks which is a different editing software compared to Final Cut Pro which we chose not to use as Bullet Time Looks offered a better quality of editing, making it easier to edit the lighting, colour and contrast. Bullet Time Looks also had the effect that we felt was best for our title sequence. By using Bullet Time Looks, Liam was able to edit our darker shots to look lighter with ease by being able to edit shots individually instead of on Final Cut  Pro where the whole footage would be edited which isn't very good because some of the shots differ completely from each other with some being lighter and darker than others.

For our shots we didn't have the use of a dolly at all but only a tri-pod, so this limited us when it came to actually filming our shots as many title sequences use panning and tracking shots so that the titles flow a lot easier and better.

A problem that we encountered was that the first DSLR camera that we used to film the majority of our title sequence, drained its batteries extremely quickly and we were only getting around 25-30 minutes of filming for each set of AA batteries that we used. Although this was a problem, it helped to teach me that re-chargeable battery packs are more sufficient than using AA batteries and having to buy new ones constantly.

Evaluation- Audience

We decided that our target audience for our film would be white british males and females aged between 15 and 30 years old. They would have a yearly income of around £31,000 but their disposable  income was not decided as it would vary depending on bills that they pay. This film would mainly attract a British audience as it has an all British cast, British location, British production companies and a British director.  Although there is mainly a British audience, there would also be an smaller American target audience. This is because Americans have a love for British films but for the rom-com films including actors such as Colin Firth and Hugh Grant, and not really our film idea. This is why we would only attract a much smaller American audience compared to British.

For pre-production we looked into films such as "Se7en" and how it was marketed to reach a wide audience like it did but also considering that our film isn't alike to British films that made it big in the American film industry and Hollywood. We used our research to see who we would be targeting and how we would specifically target them.

Evaluation- Institution

Because of our genre and sub-genre we chose New Line Cinema as our institute to distribute our film as they have produced films like our own before with the likes of "Se7en" which was extremely successful with a worldwide gross of $316,400,000. By choosing New Line Cinema as our institute to distribute our film, we will be able to hopefully have the same kind of success as "Se7en" but instead have a wider British audience rather than American as it has more of a British feel to it as it is located in England. We would still be able to get a large American audience due to the actors that will be playing the roles of the characters in our film.

Evaluation- Brief

Our brief for this task was to design and and then create a title sequence, making sure that we followed the codes and conventions of the genre of our title sequences. We then had to film this title sequence that we had created ourselves and look into the marketing side of it and also our target audience.

Our title sequence is about a psychotic serial killer based in Greenwich who keeps a diary of his murders, including what happened whilst he was doing them and how the protagonist of the film Lawrence Ansen was close to catching him. The killer also keeps small reminders from his murders such as earrings from the women which he keeps as his prized possessions, hanging them up on the walls of his run down shed.

Our sub-genre for this film is "suspense thriller" which was inspired by films such as "Zodiac", "Prisoners" and especially "Se7en", which ended up being the main inspiration behind our title sequence. By using this as a sub-genre, we can now play on the audience's minds by bringing them into the killers psychotic mind and eventually having their attention completely focused on the film.

Post Mortem- Finished Cut

First Preview of Title Sequence with Feedback

In Wednesday's lesson we showed our title sequence to the class and Mr.Grimsley for the first time, as well as watching every other groups title sequences. Whilst watching other groups title sequences, our group was given a feedback sheet in which we had to fill out after we watched the rest of the class's title sequences. These are each of the feedback sheets that we were given back after the viewing of our 'Post Mortem' title sequence. 

Our feedback was very positive with the highest star score occurring on 5 of the sheets. The main bits of feedback that we received was that it was very alike to the "Se7en" title sequence, but we didn't mind this too much as it was our main inspiration for our title sequence.

Day 2 of Re-shooting

We had to re-shoot one last time on Saturday 15th March 2014 as there was still some shots that we were unable to do due to me not being in full costume such as being able to shoot my feet walking past.  Me, Teela and Liam scheduled to film during the afternoon, but soon we realised that there were a few problems with this such as Liam being busy and also it was still too bright outside for it to look okay when filming. So instead we waited until 6:30pm to meet up, but I was running late so Liam and Teela did attempt at shooting some of the shots that didn't show any of my body but only the killers hands, and also shots that didn't actually involve me in them at all.

We went on to film again, this time being considerate when it came to how much light we actually used in the shots. We had to be sure that we had enough lighting in these shots because in previous shots that we had filmed on other days, the shots were far too dark to even show up on the Macs when Liam began to edit them. Our group was told by Mr.Grimsley that it is okay if we were to give the shots too much light as you can actually darken them if needed, but if we didn't give the shots enough light then there isn't much you can actually do when it comes to editing it and trying to make the shot brighter.

We used this time to our advantage by adding extra shots in which we felt was necessary such as the scalpel shot. This shot was filmed when I turned up to Liam's house late, with Liam being the actor in this scene. Liam runs the blade up and down his fingertips and his palms, alike to John Doe in the "Se7en" title sequence. This shows the audience that the killer doesn't leave a trace of his identity which is exactly what we wanted as a group.

Re-shooting and Camera Change

We had to re-shoot due to some of our shots coming up far too dark on the Mac computers. This meant that me, Liam and Teela had to go back to Liam's during our double media lesson so that we could re-shoot as many shots as possible, but we could only do a few as I did not have the exact costume that I used before when we first filmed.

The camera change occurred when we realised that Teela's camera that we was using before didn't have autofocus and also had to repeatedly change the AA batteries (14 times to be precise). This led to us renting out a DSLR camera from school which had autofocus and a rechargeable battery pack. This meant that we could now film shots without having to guess whether it was in focus or not (this is when we couldn't see the screen as we did a shot facing from a different direction.)

We went from using this camera:

To using this camera:

This significantly improved our shots as it also shot a better picture.

First draft of our credits

These are the first drafts of our credits for our title sequence. The scratchy font that we have used compliments our title sequence very well as it helps to keep the genre of the film going.

Music for our title sequence

This is going to be the music that we use for our title sequence. We decided to use this music as it is alike to the title sequence from the film "Se7en" which our work was inspired by.

https://soundcloud.com/industrial-records/sets/throbbing-gristle-tracks

Sounds

For our sound we used the following background music and little clips of sound.

http://www.freesfx.co.uk/soundeffects/industrial/

https://soundcloud.com/industrial-records/sets/throbbing-gristle-tracks

We felt these were the best sounds we could use as it linked up with our title sequence really well, giving it extra eeriness and also creating suspense.

Editing the shots

When editing the shots, Liam had found a good effect that we could use on our shots for the title sequence called "Bad TV". This effect distorted the shot and made it to look like an old static TV. We used this on the majority of our clips as we really liked the effect as it gave the title sequence and aery feel and also gave our title sequence the same kind of feel as the "Se7en" title sequence.

First day of Shooting

On our first day of shooting, me, Teela, Rosie and Liam met up at around half 3 in the afternoon at Liam's house as he had the most appropriate filming location for our title sequence. We used his shed in the back garden as it had a desk that was perfect for our title sequence and was fairly rotted and had an aery vibe to it. We began to film on the first day using a torch for lighting but this turned out to be a bad decision as the light already began to run out of power very quickly into the day and was too yellowish for our liking. Because of this our group had to re-shoot 12 of our shots but instead using a light that was on our phones which produced a better quality of lighting for our shots. Re-shooting didn't take too much time so we wasn't really set back too much for our schedule that we had made. On Friday the 23rd of February Liam had began to edit our title sequence by putting the shots with the correct lighting into place and also put the soundtrack that we had found which will be an underscore, this is where the music will be conjoined and overlaid with other scores and sounds.

Title Sequences looked at in lesson

Se7en

Catch Me If You Can


Forrest Gump


Lord of War


We watched each of these title sequences in class so that we could look at different types of title sequences by different people. These title sequences ranged from Kuntzel and Deygas' Saul Bass inspired title sequence for 'Catch Me If You Can' to the point of view shot title sequence in 'Lord of War'. The Lord of War title sequence is very different from the rest of the title sequences that we have reviewed, this is because it uses alot of HDR- based CG imagery compared to the likes of the title sequence for Forrest Gump. The Forrest Gump title sequence is shot on one camera and pans from the sky all the way down to the streets, following a single white feather until it lands onto Tom Hanks well played character 'Forrest Gump'.

Napoleon Dynamite Title Sequence

The title sequence starts with an aerial view of a plate of chicken nuggets, with tomato ketchup around the edges spelling out one of the production companies "Fox Searchlight Pictures". A bird tweeting is heard in the background  which I believe shows the simplicity of the title sequence. This tweeting is then taken over by music which begins to become up beat which creates more of a bouncy atmosphere, raising the mood.

We are then show a view of the character 'Napoleon Dynamite' opening up his wallet and taking out his different membership cards which includes a "U.F.O abduction insurance card" and also his school I.D card which helps to show us who the main character is and what he looks like. From this scene we can also tell that the main character is quite geeky as he is into U.F.O's and aliens. The school I.D card also shows the setting of where the film is as it says the name of the school and its location "Preston High" "Preston,      

                                                                                   Idaho".            











There are other plates of food placed out onto old fashioned carpet which state some of the crew and their jobs in the film. By using the old fashioned carpet in the background, we can have a slight guess of the time that this film is set in which is the 1980's. By looking at the foods that are laid out, all of them are junk foods which could connote that the main character is a teenager as teenagers are mainly known for eating junk foods and not having anything healthy to eat.

We then see a ninja star thrown which again shows that the main character is quite geeky and also childish as he is playing around with things that mainly children play with. This goes along with library books and drawings of his made up fantasies. This continues the character's geeky ways.

Barthes Enigma Codes

In the lesson today we began to learn about Barthes Enigma Codes, learning what they represented and meant. Barthes Enigma Codes is a theory that suggests a text (whether that be television, film, poster etc) portrays a mystery to draw an audience in, pose questions and as such, become intrigued in the piece. An example of this is a murder mystery. A murder mystery will often not reveal the identity of the murderer until the end of the story, which poses the question "Who is the murderer?".

Barthes Enigma Codes are as follows:

• The Hermeneutic Code- the voice of truth (this is an element in a story that is not explained and, therefore, exists as an enigma for the reader, raising questions).
• The Proairetic Code- the voice of empires.
• The Semantic Code- the voice of the person.
• The Symbolic Code- the voice of the symbol.
• The Cultural Code- the voice of the culture.

Danny Yount

http://">

This is the audience profile that we have made for our title sequence. This includes the Ages, their ABC, Religion, Education, Occupation, Marital Status, Annual Income, Disposable Income and their Nationality. By creating this audience profile, our group will now be able to know exactly what we will have to do in order to meet our target audience by including things that we know our primary audience will enjoy.

This is our groups production company name  and logo that I created through the use of Photoshop. The name of the production company was thought of by our group member Liam and the design of the logo was by both me and Liam.

Saul Bass

Saul Bass

In our lesson we began to learn about Saul Bass, looking into his life and more importantly his trademark style that he uses in his title sequences.
Saul Bass was an award winning American graphic designer and Academy Award winning filmmaker who was born on May 8th 1920 and died on April 25th 1996. He was best known for his design of motion picture such as title sequences, film posters and corporate logos. Saul Bass's trademark style involved the use of geometric shapes and their symbolism. The shapes used usually connoted what was going to happen in the film such as "The Man with the Golden Arm" as he shows white lines, connoting that the film involves drugs. Bass's work has inspired many to produce title sequences like his, such as the films "Catch Me if you Can" and "X Men: First Class". He had a career that lasted for over 40 years and he used his innovative ideas and unique perspective of the world to influence his art, engaging his audiences and developing the graphic design industry in the process. Hitchcock's famous shower-murder scene in Psycho owes its success to the design work of Bass' storyboards. He is also responsible for the logos of many prominent corporations like AT&T, United Airlines, and Dixie.

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

Website Analysis

"Here is the main title from D.W. Griffith’s “Intolerance” (1916), which many reviewers and historians consider the greatest film of the silent era. Note that variations of the director’s name are featured in five ways:"

I found this part of the article interesting as it has the directors name shown in 5 different ways, so I like how the director has made his name more important than the actual film itself.

"Here is a title still from the oldest surviving feature-length animated film “The Adventures of Prince Achmed” (Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed) by German animator Lotte Reiniger:"

I like this part of the article as it is interesting to know that this film is the oldest surviving animated film.

"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:"

I liked this part of the article as it is interesting to know that the idea of building suspense that way came by accident and if it didn't happen then the whole of the films outcome with its box office could have changed dramatically.

Journal Post

Work Produced this week

This week we started to begin to look into our title sequence ideas in more depth by looking at the technical side of our films. We had to create a PowerPoint presentation that we would later show to the class about our films and had to include some specific points about the film in it such as the cast, the budget, release date etc. By doing this, we were showing that we had looked into what would be the best options to take so that our film idea could actually be executed and filmed in a realistic way. We will now be looking even more into our title sequence ideas and making minor changes so that we can achieve the best possible outcome.