Institutions

Research on Paramount Pictures

We decided to use Paramount Pictures for our institution as we found that they frequently used Micheal Scorsese for there movies we would like him to also direct our film so it made perfect sense. We also noticed how they have produced many brilliant films over the years such as Shutter Island with Micheal Scorsese which was a massive blockbuster and one that will be a film of its time.

Paramount Pictures is an American film production and distribution company, located in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by Media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last Major film studio still headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. Paramount is consistently ranked as one of the top-grossing movie studios.

General research into title sequences (codes, conventions, purpose)

Codes, Conventions and purpose

• Music sets the tone for a film.
• The text connotates the type of film it is.
• Details of cast and crew.
• Films title.
• Introduction to character and character type.
• Indication of place.
• Indication of historial period.
• Information regarding mood and tone.
• Introduction to signature theme tune.
• Information about Genre.
• Questions that the viewer finds intriguging.
• Patterns and types of editing that will be echoed in the remainder of the film.
• Mise-en-scene and cinematography that will be echoed or elaborated upon later on in the film.

Personal Schedule

Personal Schedule

* Friday 17th December 2010 - January 4th 2011

* Research, Setting, Props and actors.

* Analyse and research crime films and TV shows' opening credits.

* Apply everything on to my blog to add journals and latest research updates.

* Find out own research into particular typography, music and editing

Production Schedule

Production Schedule

* December 8th - 17th storyboarding, planning setting, props and actors.

* January 4th - Stop planning and story boarding and start filming.

* January 27th finish filming the title sequence.

* January 28th start editing the title sequence.

* February 16th finish editing the title sequence.

* February 17th to finish off any little bits left, or to perfect everything

Jornal 8th December 2010

8/12/10

We decided to do a little bit of group work to make sure that we are doing what we need to do and that we are not behind in our work. We decided to look at some title sequences for Crime films i.e. Pulp Fiction, No country for old men
and Crime drama series i.e. CSI Miami, White chapel
And also to decide on our schedule and what we would do over the Christmas holiday, so by doing this we have enabled ourselves to have a time table which will allow us to keep on time with our sequence and for us to NOT miss the deadline that has been set!
This is the opening scene for 'No Country for Old Men'



I chose this because when i watched it i liked the simplicity of it, but it also showed a lot of emotion. For example it is just different landscapes of a desert with the sun rising and the lighting allows us to think of dark times. Not only that but the voice over was a fantastic way to introduce the film to give us a simple out look on the film.

Then i found that 'Die hard' was also a good example as it is a well loved and known film;



This sequence is very different to the one above as it seems as if it is part of the film but every now and again you see the names of people who have contributed to the making of the film. I chose this however as the typography was my main focus and the way in which the title of the film appears on the screen. Both words come from opposite sides of the screen and the type of it makes it seem like a hard hitting film which also comes across in the way that the title comes onto the screen.

Now i will look at some dramas which use some techniques that we would like to use in our sequence.

Our favourite one was by far 'The Wire'



We chose this because a lot of the shots are the same as the ones that we would like to use and we like the way you never see any one's face and only technical objects. We also noticed that there are a lot of hints of were it is set and what it is about which is the sort of thing that we would like to come across in our sequence.

To Kill A Mockingbird Link

This is the link to 'Kill a Mockingbird' as we felt that this was one of the best and most simplest openings that fit to out sort of style.

  



Here are some of the stills from the opening sequence, i really like the way that it is in black and white but yet it still looks very modern. Black and White makes it feel a little more sadistic and in a way just fits. We haven't ventured into the thoughts of having our sequence in black and white however after watching this i think that it should be a possibility. Although some things fit in black and white and some things do not so if we do decide to put our sequence into black and white it would be a last minute decision.


When i look at these all together it gives me some really good ideas for what we could do for our sequence, as it is a movie sequence it also makes it hard to not completely go for the crime drama part of it as those are the sequences that we prefer. However i think that by combining them we would be able to make a really good piece but the main things that i think would be very good to suggest would be the use of landscapes in 'No Country For Old Men' as it creates a sense of reality and drama, especially with the voice over talking about the man that had been arrested. However i also think that the use of typography and the use of technical objects in 'The Wire' were very creative, and they give a real sense of crime which is obviously what we want to come across in our sequence. And then we have 'To Kill A Mockingbird' which gives us an eerie sense to the film as we notice that it is a child doing these things and it makes it all that more sadistic, i also love the fact that it is in black and white, as it also adds to the criminal side of things. I think that these are really good combinations to look at for our title sequence and that they will help us the come up with a genius idea!!

Foundation Portfolio Tick List 1-6

Evidence of Research of Your Chosen Genre
CRIME:
First we start with definition of what a crime genre really is:
Crime fiction is the genre of fiction that deals with crimes, their detection, criminals, and their motives. Most - though not all - crime novels crime novels share a common structure. First there is the crime, usually a murder; then there is the investigation; and finally the outcome or judgement, often in the shape of the criminal's arrest or death.


Now i will show some examples of what some crime fiction books/television shows and films might be,
firstly an example of a crime book might be : 

The Night Stalker: The Life and Crimes of One of America's Deadliest Killers

Here is a little taster of what is inside

Twenty-five years after Richard Ramirez left thirteen dead, paralysing the city of Los Angeles, his name is still synonymous with fear, torture and sadistic murder. Philip Carlo's US bestseller "The Night Stalker", based on three years of meticulous research and extensive interviews with Ramirez, revealed the killer and his horrifying crimes to be even more chilling than anyone could have imagined. From watching his cousin commit murder at age eleven to his nineteen death sentences to the juror who fell in love with him, the story of Ramirez is a bizarre and spellbinding descent into the very heart of human evil. Incredibly, after "The Night Stalker" was first published, thousands of women from all over the world started to contact Carlo, begging to be put in touch with the killer. Carlo began to interview them and, in this compelling new edition, presents their disturbing stories and the dark sexual desires that would drive them towards a brutal murderer. Also, in an exclusive death-row interview, the killer himself gives his thoughts on the 'Ramirez Groupies' - and what he thinks they really want.

 

Then there is an example of a crime TV Programme which might be:

Whitchapel that was aired on ITV

Here is a quick summery of what it is about:

Set in 2008 and against the hugely atmospheric background of Whitechapel, London, a modern police force are fighting an old adversary. A series of bloody, tragic and impossible crimes would suggest someone is carrying out copycat Jack the Ripper murders. The murders are investigated by our three unlikely heroes: Chandler, a fast-tracked, media savvy DI on his first big murder case; Miles, nearing retirement, a front-line, hard-bitten DS, and Buchan, the eccentrically brilliant Jack the Ripper tour guide.

Then you have the American type which is a lot different, as it is a lot more dramatic and 
they do not focus on one case for no longer then one episode,

For example CSI Miami:

The cases of the Miami-Dade, Florida police department's Crime Scene Investigations unit.

Finally you have the Film industry which can be a lot more versatile,

For example Pulp Fiction

The lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster's wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.

Here is the link to the trailer > LINK ME

There are many different ways in which Crime is perceived for example when i looked up Crime films and saw that Pulp Fiction was a crime film i wasn't to sure so had to ask a second opinion. But my version of crime would be CSI for the American love and Whitchapel for the British something a little more hard core and to the point. With more nitty gritty details in it and real life drama. I think that Britain does the best Crime fiction in my personal opinion 

Foundation Portfolio Tick List....1-6

Analysis of contemporary titles/opening vs. older title/opening:
First I will look at Paul Donnellon's sequence as i researched him for a piece of research that we did and I thought that some of his sequences were very well done and were some of my favourite.
I looked at a more contemporary opening sequence first and that was for St Trinians 
Here is the Link > LINK ME


Giving the fact that Paul has a background in working in a graphic design place this really fit his unique style, he uses animation which has improved immensely over the past few years. He  is able to use contemporary text that attracts the younger audiences also by using the colour pink it attracts the female sex into watching the film and by hinting that it is more of a female/teenagers sort of film.


Now I will compare this to Saul Bass...
Here is the link > LINK ME

The difference I noticed between the two is the simplicity and the restrictions of what they have produced and the refrain from modern technology. With Saul Bass he isn't able to use much technology because of the year that he did his sequences and the lines that he uses are his signature sequence. The use of the simple colours of black/white and grey show that not only is the film black and white because of the era but because they make the effect that the film is going to be a deep dark film that won't be pleasant to watch for some viewers. However like I have already said in Paul's sequence he has a lot of colour and imagination and compared to Saul's it is a lot more busy.
You can tell the time difference in not only the era but the you can also tell that Paul has had a lot of practice at what is recent and modern whereas Saul was only able to work with what he had at the time that he had it.

Planning: Production Brief

Project Name: PI Private Investigator
Length: 90 Seconds - 2 Minutes
Deadline: Friday 11th February
Group Members and there Roles: Charlotte Beaird - Editing & Filming
                                                  Si Hin Tuong - Acting & Editing
                                                  Libby Rowe - Camera Work & Director

Brief overview of content (approx 50 words): In this film the PI gets a case that he has asked to re-open, however he does not realize that this case was closed for a reason and he slowly begins to realize this. First he starts to dig a little deeper by in a sense stalking the suspects, taking images of them and writing down what he sees them doing. One of the members of this gang that he is investigating finds out that he is investigating them and they decide the kidnap him and make him tell them everything that he knows. Knowing that this case has taken a deadly turn he does not tell them anything with the risk of being killed but also the possibility of getting aways and getting them locked up forever. As he does not tell them anything they decide to let him go thinking that he will not say anything as they have scared him half to death just like they did with the previous investigator. Then he goes to the police and some of the members get arrested however the main culprits do not get arrested and with them knowing that it was him who gave them in they are out to get them..........

 Target audience (age group, gender): Men/Teenagers

 Possible scheduling publishing suggestions: Summer 2011 August/June

 What comparable products have you researched? We have researched a couple of films called The Departed and Infernal Affairs which would fit with out title sequences. And the genre is also very similar as it is a crime/thriller film.

 How will you test whether the product is successful? How will you check that it accomplishes the intended effect? We will test whether the product has been successful by putting the trailer on a DVD and then showing a room of people the giving them questioners so that they can give us feedback and a reasonable response. We will also check that it has accomplishes the intended effect by also doing a questionnaire.
 

Planning for our Title Sequence...The Story

Adam's Lesson PITCH

During this lesson we did our pitches about our made up film's and we took crit from other groups to allow us to make improvements. Adam gave us some advice when we told him about what our ideas were for the title sequence and he told us to look at The Departed and Infernal Affairs:

The Departed







AND

Infernal Affairs II




These are the two films that he told us to look at The Departed and Infernal Affairs, however we could not find the sequence to the first one so we chose to do the second one.

Planning of our title sequence

24th November -Double Media

1.Brainstorm and decide which Genre of film we are going to plan.

2. We had to use 'The Big Picture' sheets to plan each element of the film.

3. We then had to prepare a pitch that we will then be delivering in our next lesson, imagining that you are an independent film maker and you're trying to secure funding from a Production company. 

The genre for our title sequence is 'Crime' we have decided to call it P.I (Private Investigator) 

Narrative

Equilibrium > The investigator is asked to re-open a previous case which is normal for him as he does this on a daily bases. However the case that he is re-opening was closed for a reason and not realizing this he starts digging into it.

Problem/Disequilibrium > The people that he is investigating find out that he is digging up dirt on them and trying to take them down so they then try to injure/kill him but each attempt fails.

Action > They then kidnap the investigator as he now knows too much about them and what they do and they try to get out as much information out of him as possible but he does not give anything up. as a result of this they think that they have scared him enough that he will not go to the police and forget about the case so they let him go.

Resolution > However the investigator never looses a fight so he gathers up all the information that he has found and goes to the police and pleads his case ...as you do!

He is then able to bring down a few of the gangsters but as this is a big gang the main gangsters are still out there and realize that they have to deal with him as he did not do as they told him....Which then leads to a sequel...But that is not relevant :)

Character's 

There are not many characters in our sequence, we only have to private investigator and the one gangster that he has been asked to investigate.

We have decided that they should both be men so there is more of a rivalry there. We decided that we would want Tom Hanks to be the main character and Jet Lee to be the triad.

Setting

Most of the scenes are shot in dark allies and at night time to give it a more darker feel. There are however some shots that will be in the PI's office to show that he is working on the case and what he has found out and what he has to work on.

Visual Style

We  will be using a tilt shot to show the PI's board which has all of the details of the case on it so that he can link things together and so it is easier for him to see what he is working with.

We have also decided that during the whole sequence we do not want to show the PI's face so that we can give him a bit of mystery so all the shots of him will be from behind and some close ups of his hands to see what he is doing and make it more interesting.

Paul Donnellon

A Brief Bio

Donnellon was originally from Dublin and whilst there studied animation and graphic design at Dun Laoighaire College of Art and Design. He then moved to London to be able to work with TVC which was the company who animated 'The Beatles - Yellow Submarine' and 'The Snowman'. From 2000 to 2002 Paul moved to the Oscar winning company The Mill as the consultant director of 3D animation. Since then he has been able to create his own company called Voodoodog with David Z. Obadiah.
His work as a commercials director include: CBBC's launch idents, Mercury award-winning Talvin Singh, Pink Flyd ad Kate Winslet music video 'What If'.

Catalogue Of Work

He has done title sequences for the following films,
-Nanny Mcphee
-Nanny Mcphee Returns
-Smokin Aces
-Scott Pilgrim vs The World
-The A Team
-The life and Death of Peter Sellers
-Love in the time of Cholera
-The River King
-Made of Honor

Smokin Aces




With this title sequence we notice how Paul has used his experience of his Graphic Design. He uses this sort of typography as it is bold and shows a manly side to it and even though it is very simple it also shows us that you need to find a deeper meaning in the type. it shows that the film is very bold and manly and everything is to the point just as the text is. This sequence is very comic book like the way he uses still images to slow things to look at them and puts it over a background to make it look like an animation which he also studied.

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers -Link to the Sequence

With this title sequence we see a more fun side to Paul as he once again uses his experience of Graphic Design and Animation to use in this sequence. The typography shows that it is a fun and comical film by using the bright colours, fun typography and how it pops up onto the screen or more of a hop. Also when the animation begins we see flowers around the first name from the movie and once again shows a fun bright side to the movie. Also when in the animation he knocks over the lamp and does not care it shows that the film is very comical.

Comments - Nanny Mcphee
Paul Donnellon: "Nanny McPhee is a colorful kids movie. The director, Kirk Jones, saw our Peter Sellers title sequence and asked us to pitch on his opening credits."

Paul Donnellon: "I drew caricatures of the main child cast and constructed cut out figures rather than going for full drawn animation, like we did before in the Peter Sellers sequence. It gave a different effect and still holds your interest and gives the audience something to leave the cinema with."

This is our Continuity Piece

This is our Continuity Piece.
This is our first piece of film in a group of four which included Charlotte Norman & Beaird, Emily Hills and me Libby!
In this piece we had to keep the 180 degree rule which we achieved, open a door which we also successfully filmed. Then someone sitting on a chair opposite another person and an exchange of dialogue which once again we achieved. 
For this sequence we chose to take two best friends and make one a transsexual who was in love with his/her best friend. In this piece the transsexual chooses to come clean and tell his best friend about how he loves her and that she is really a he.
We chose this as it was a fun narrative to which we could have a little bit of a laugh with and we were able to to props which was rather funny. 
We used Si Hin as the transsexual and Charlotte played the naive best friend.#

This is the title sequence to the American Sitcom Two guys a girl and a pizza place
I chose this sequence as it looked fun and everything fit together well, for example the text is in a fun looking font and it is also red. by using the colour red it shows that it is a bright show that attract many people into watching it. This also shows that the characters are fun and loving as the colour red could also been seen as the colour of love and they are all best friends so all in all the colour really works for the sequence. Then you have the typography of it and this is a swirly sort of text which you would most normally see on a cartoon or something comedic which is what this show is a comedy. The text allows us to see that they have fun personalities and we also know that the characters will be fun to watch. So when you put the colour of the text and the typography together it shows us that the show is a fun comedy and the characters are close friends that make a lot of jokes.

Then you have the setting and how the actors act in the sequence. You see that they are always together and they always have smiles on there faces and they are also dancing around which shows happiness and that they are having fun which then tell us that the program is a happy one with a lot of laughter in it. You also have a plain setting which tells us that the three characters are the main focus in the program.

Film Studies Summer Task Case Study

The film that i will be doing a case study on will be Psycho, this is because I am a great fan of  Alfred Hitchcock and i feel that this is a brilliant film to write about. Hitchcock was an amazing producer and film maker he started off by managing to secure a job as a title designer in a studio in London called Lasky for two years. He had is first chance at stardom when in 1923 the director of Always Tell Your Wife fell ill he was pulled up to complete in finishing the movie. This highly impressed the studio managers and they decided to give him a directing assignment on a movie named Number 13 but he unfortunately could not finish it as the studio closed its British operation. He was then hired by a man named Michael Balcon to work as an assistant director for the company later to be known as Gainsborough Pictures, he worked as a writer, title designer and art director. After many years at the company he was given the chance to direct a British/German co-production called The Pleasure Garden, his career as a director finally began. 

The nightmarish, disturbing film's themes of corruptibility, confused identities, voyeurism, human vulnerabilities and victimization, the deadly effects of money, Oedipal murder, and dark past histories are realistically revealed. Its themes were revealed through repeated uses of motifs, such as birds, eyes, hands, and mirrors.Psycho also broke all film conventions by displaying its leading female protagonist having a lunchtime affair in her sexy white undergarments in the first scene; also by photographing a toilet bowl - and flush - in a bathroom (a first in an American film), and killing off its major 'star' Janet Leigh a third of the way into the film (in a shocking, brilliantly-edited shower murder scene accompanied by screeching violins). The 90-odd shot shower scene was meticulously storyboarded by Saul Bass, but directed by Hitchcock himself.

I chose to study this film because even though it was shot years ago and our conventions of filming are more advanced this film still gives you a thrill like it should. It is no way boring and in know way ever going to get old and boring. Hitchcock's movie's will always be the best as to me the oldies are the best and this is up there with one of the best. I chose this one instead of the Kite Runner because i felt that Psycho was a better film all around it was more my type of film it made me really want to delve deep into everything about it, and to think it was one if its first about and man with a mental issue and he broke boundary's but they worked so well.