Sunday 10 April 2016

Evaluation part 6

Question 7:

" Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? "

Throughout this project to create our title sequence, I feel that I have acquired a new set of skills and more knowledge on the subject and how films are funded, put together, created and even altered throughout the process of being made. I feel that I've learnt the skills needed to edit footage and assemble it in such an order to covey a particular genre, for example, my genre was a sub genre of sci-fi - dystopian so i had to research into similar films and see how they were done. As we worked in groups, we assigned ourselves certain roles to fill in the group, so when it came to editing my group member Tyrell was lead editor and as I was lead cinematographer, I had to make sure my camera shots were up to a good enough standard for him to edit to make it conventional to our genre. Furthermore, Tyrell and I worked closely on editing together as well as cinematography. This gave us both a second opinion on what each of us was doing and we constantly gave one another constant feedback. Another member of our group Jacob was in charge of sound, so he researched into soundtracks for dystopian films and as a group we found a soundtrack that fitted well into our title sequence. Thus making me feel that I've learnt how to manage my time and efforts efficiently and I've also learnt that constant constructive criticism from myself and m group members and even teachers as well as classmates is essential in making the final product perfect.

Furthermore, I've learnt that research and planning is key in progression when making a film plot and title sequence. This is because as we chose a challenging genre, we had to know what exactly made a dystopian film dystopian. So via research we had to take notes on what was conventional and we then applied these key features, ambiguous plots and micro-features into our own title sequence to make sure we do it right. Planning was a major issue at the start of this project, there was lack of communication within the group which ultimately lead to differences and made it harder to work on the project as a group as none of us had any idea what the other member was doing or when. So, in order to fix this issue we set up a group chat and would inform one another what we were doing, arrangements could get planned days in advance and then things became much more organised and made our lives easier. This helped us much more so we even had time schedules for when to meet in the half terms, what equipment we'd need and what time etc, which ultimately lead to a more organised team and made us work better. 


Personally,I had issues with attendance and I realised that this was making it much harder to get work planned and made it harder for the group. This was right at the start but i then improved my attendance and even came into school in my half terms and stayed behind to get work done as i knew it wasn't fair on m group members, so i learnt that punctuality is needed as it's fairer and more efficient to have all three group members working at the same time. This also improved and made communication easier as we could all talk face to face, this was a huge improvement to our groups productivity as well as our final outcome. So i have learnt that it is essential to make as much effort as possible and pushing yourself as far as you can go to get the best results you can possibly produce, but i digress. 

Looking back at our task I'd say that as a group we have learnt a lot on how to communicate and plan things as well as research appropriately for our needs. Personally i feel that I've come a long way as I'm much more equipped in the sense I'm more informed and experienced in editing,cinematography and the media industry in general.There was  task to look into possible studios that would distribute our films, so using previous media knowledge I took the initiative to apply my current knowledge and research into "The Big Six" studios as i knew that these were vital media institutions that are very successful and also have history in distributing blockbuster films, so inevitably my knowledge about these conglomerate studios increased and i learnt a lot more about the industry.

In conclusion, I can confidently say that I've learnt a lot. Whether that'd be with personal issues, group issues or problems or even technical difficulties and errors, I now know how to improve this and fix these. I still criticise myself for lack of effort at the beginning of the project and i also criticise my group for early communication problems and minor issues that could've been resolved sooner. However, i believe that once we over came our difficulties and we all put in a lot of effort in resolving things, planning events and scheduling things better we improved and made our title sequence the best we could possibly do.







Saturday 9 April 2016

Evaluation part 5


Question 6

 " What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product ? "

Evaluation part 4

Q:4 - who would be your audience for your media product?

Q:5 - How did you address/attract your audience?
For questions 4 + 5, we as a group decided to answer them together due to them being very similar.Our group  response via video
Question 4+5

I thought by presenting our work this way it would attract/address our audience, we listened and read through multiple amounts of feedback from our classmates and teachers. We ensured that we took their feedback, listened to their wants and needs and made sure we made the improvements in order to please and appeal to our audience.This is also a good way to show what we've learnt throughout our coursework. 

Evaluation part 3

Question 3

Evaluation part 2


Question 2

Evaluation part 1

Question 1

Evaluation for our title sequence

For our title sequence, we made sure that we all worked and followed closely to our given brief and specification for our title sequence for our movie of 'Genesis: The Uprising'. My group, included Jacob, Tyrell and I, and we assigned ourselves specific roles to have in our group project. Tyrell was lead editor, jacob was in charge of sound and i was in charge of cinematography... anything else we done and decided as a group. At first, for our title sequence and movie, we decided as a group that we wanted to essentially make a movie that would hold as a Dystopian/Sci-Fi movie - which is essentially a sub-genre. We wanted to challenge ourselves as our teacher said about how easy and conventional typical genres were, e.g horror and thriller. The reason this was a challenge was to create this genre, there usually needs to be a budget of some sort and as we are all students, our budget wasn't high at all. The narrative of our movie consists of a dystopian future with different cults and groups forming who aspire to take down the government of this society, however, the government is in fact one step ahead and are planning to overthrow and eliminate these groups and, they are tracking their every move via CCTV and found footage being sent to them. Our title sequence sets up for the rest of our movie as the plot/narrative is briefly introduced through the beginning of the movie via our title sequence.

Our title sequence sets up enigmas as the title sequence is quite vague, although our plot and genre are clearly conveyed throughout the sequence, there's still bits that leave the audience unsure of what's happening. This is through the government having complete CCTV coverage of the cults within our fictional world and the audience is left to wonder why, what their purpose is and so on. So without complete context it's difficult to understand what's going on, but it' still intriguing as the audience wants to find out.

In conclusion, I feel as though the title of our movie 'Genesis: The Uprising' fits well with the narrative of our movie as genesis means the beginning or creation of a something. This "dystopian future society forming and creating cults in order to overthrow the government and, how this society simply has to find a new way of living due to the new world order set by the higher classed government." - This is what our group decided our narrative was and uprising meaning that their will be a social uprising which is fitting for the narrative of our movie as this links well with the cults rising up together in order to take down the government. The genre of our movie is a sub-genre of Sci-Fi, which is Dystopian.

Half term editing

Tyrell and I met up during the half term and went into school to edit our video that we created for our evaluation. We both worked on editing but I mainly focused on editing the evaluation questions and Tyrell went over our title sequence to make sure everything was perfect.We actually managed to get all three of our video evaluation questions edited and uploaded.
In order to edit our 3 answers (via video) for our evaluation on our title sequence, we have decided that we will come into school within our own time during the half term in order to edit the answers using Final Cut Pro.
As the Deadline approaches, Tyrell, Jacob and I have decided to begin recording and planning ideas for our evaluation for our title sequence. Today, we used a tri-pod, a camera, high-key lighting and, a greenscreen behind us. We decided to use a greenscreen for the recording process of our evaluation as we thought it would be best to screen our title sequence behind us whilst we provide our answers to the camera. We brainstormed all of our answers for our evaluation the day before and have now gotten around to recording 3 answers to 3 of the evaluation questions. This leaves us now to edit the recorded parts of our evaluation and, for the other remaining answers, we will be answering them in another digital and interactive format 

Further improvements

Today, Tyrell and I decided to improve our title sequence by incorporating all of the feedback we had previously received and, improving our title sequence. We have changed the font to a more simple yet sci-fi visual representation , but we kept the Dark Underground font for the end titles of the sequence. Furthermore, we decided to space out where the names would pop up throughout the sequence. Finally, we decided to incorporate the found footage, cam-corder feel to our updated Rebels scene is this was what was mentioned during our feedback. 

Title Sequence second draft

For our screening of the second draft, improved version of our title sequence, we received again another set of feedback from our class mates and our teacher in terms of what has been improved since the previous screening. We received praise on things such as: the lead government man (kaseem) pointing angrily at the CCTV board and, the re-shoot of our Rebels scene. Upon editing, Tyrell actually found that our original Illuminati sequence that featured a focus pull with Jacob was still on my Apple Mac. So, we all decided to add this version into our improved title sequence. Classmates felt as though the narrative was conveyed much clearer than previously and, that the re-shot version of our Rebels scene looked much more fitting compared to the original Rebel scene. However, some feedback that we had received was that people weren't too fond of our font choices and, felt as though the appearances of the text on screen was out of place. Also, some classmates felt as though our Rebels scene should be similar to The Scavengers scene in terms of also including a found footage, handheld camera filter. All feedback on this day has been taken into account and will be added and improved to our official final version of our title sequence. 

Preparation for our evaluation

For our evaluation,Tyrell,Jacob and I have sat down within our own spare time in order to start preparing answers for the 7 evaluation questions. We made a variety of mind maps for 4 of the questions that we decided to answer. We brain stormed ideas for each of the questions that we chose. The 4 questions we chose was:
  • " What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product ? "
  • " Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product ? "
  • " What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why ? "
  •  " How did you attract/address your audience ? "
After brainstorming our ideas for these 4 questions, we decided to present the answers for these 4 questions in particular through a fun interactive media technique which was to film it in front of a green screen. We decided to play our title sequence continuously on repeat through the duration of our answers. For the remaining 3 other questions, we decided we were going to experiment with other fun interactive techniques by using things such as: PowerPoint, Prezi and actually posting blogs on to Blogger. 

Mistakes while filming

Whilst filming for our title sequence, there was a variety of things that could be deemed as a mistake that occurred at different times. When going to film at The Shard building, we decided not to use the tripod in order to get the panning shot, tilting from the top of the building to the bottom. As a result, when it came to uploading the clips onto 'Final Cut Pro', we found that the shots we took came out as shaky as we used a handheld camera. This was a learning curve for me as lead cinematographer and when editing, Tyrell then had to find a different shot that we took and reverse it on Final Cut and, we used the 'Stabilisation' effect to ensure it wasn't shaky. 

How we got the CCTV Government scene

Jacob, Tyrell and I managed to go to our schools library (the 'iBrary') and shoot an extra scene with the Government Leader (actor Kazeem). As Tyrell had previously created the 4 different pieces of CCTV for each cult and group and put them all together, he put a big red cross over each one to insinuate to the audience that Kazeem isn't of favour or the cults and simply wants to take them down. Tyrell created this using Photoshop. The scene we shot today shows Kazeem pointing furiously at the different groups, with over the shoulder shots and close-up shots of him done by me. Once the shooting for today was finished, Tyrell proceeded to go and edit the footage using 'Final Cut Pro'. He incorporated the recently shot scenes into the beginning of each cult members being shown within the title sequence in order to make it clearer for the audience to understand that what is being shown links together with the government scene from the beginning of the sequence. 

CCTV Footage on governments screen

In order to make the Government scene stand out more and be more noticeable in terms of following the plot, I have decided to create a poster including all 4 CCTV footages from all 4 of the cults/groups. This part of the scene will be used when the leader of the government is delivering his speech for his hatred towards these groups and that he wishes to execute them all and take them all down. The poster includes all 4 of the cults through CCTV and will have big red crosses over them to show that the government will take them all down.

Our Title Sequences Title

We created the title for our movie, by using an effect on 'Final Cut Pro' called 'Tumble 3D'. This made the titles pop up on screen and then slowly but then rotate/flip away backwards into the background. We used the font of the 'Dark Underground' in order to get the dark, bold and gritty font, which fits the theme/genre of our title sequence as it's a visual representation of what we're trying to achieve via visual aesthetics. Our lead editor Tyrell also decided to use the 'flashing' effect over the text so that it stands out and is eye-catching while also keeping it effective in the aspect of keeping the chaos.  

Order of credits

This is the order in which our title sequence credits go:
1. " 20th Century Fox Presents "
2. " A Film Directed by Ridley Scott "
3. " Tom Hardy "
4. " Gemma Arterton "
5. " Idris Elba "
6. " Matt Bomer "
7. " Produced by Sam Raimi "
8. " Edited by Tyrell Bibbiani "
9. " Cinematography by Danny Wright "
10. " Executive Producer Elina Roditou "
11. " Soundtrack by Danny Elfman "

12. " Genesis: The Uprising "

Monday 14 March 2016

Soundtrack

For the soundtrack for our title sequence, we decided to go on to the un-copyrighted website 'audio'. We managed to find the soundtrack that we wanted from this website and use it as the soundtrack for out title sequence. Personally, I like this soundtrack because it is a soundtrack that builds, grows and develops as our title sequence progresses. The soundtrack at the beginning of title sequence begins very dramatically but slowly, but as the sequence progresses further, it becomes more intense and dramatic. Whilst editing, we purposely ensured that when each cast members names appeared on screen, it fitted well everytime the song peaked at particular points.

Font Research

For the titles and names that appears during the title sequence, Tyrell and I investigated and looked into different fonts within 'Dafont'. We finally came across a font in particular in which we again felt fitted the theme of our title sequence, with this font being the 'Dark Underground' font. We chose this font as we felt it appeared to look very gritty yet bold and again, eye-catching.
For our font choices for out title sequence, Tyrell has done a bit of investigating into which fonts in particular best suits the dystopian theme of our genre for the titles. After spending multiple and countless times searching through the website 'Dafont.com', I came across a font in particular that I felt really stood out and fitted very well for the font on our government's map. I used the font style of 'Orion' to achieve this as I felt as though it was bold and eye-catching, which is essentially what I felt was needed.
On Thursday 18th February 2016, Tyrell, Jacob and I decided to meet to shoot the scenes for our Rebels and Scavengers for our title sequence. Unfortunately, due to miscommunication, Jacob wasn't able to come and film with us on the day. So, Tyrell and I brought the tri-pod and the two cameras with us. We decided to use the location of Fanny on the Hill park in Welling for both of our scenes. Luckily, we managed to get 3 actors to act the parts. In the park near the woods, we managed to build and create a mini-set of survival things such as: shelters made of twigs, an amateur clothing line and an stack of twigs for a fire. We then shot this and took multiple angles and camera shots to achieve the vision we wanted for this Scavengers scene.

For the Rebels scene, we went to a back road near the park in Welling. Down this road, we saw a wall covered in graffiti, with the road looking quite desolate. We came supplied with 4 fake guns for our actors to use for the Rebels scene, along with scarfs and bandanas to create an atmosphere of mystery and, to make them look the part for this particular scene. We also experimented with different camera angles and different camera shots to help achieve the visions we had set.


The Shard

On Tuesday 16th February, Tyrell, Jacob and I traveled into London in order to capture the two establishing shots that we needed: The Shard and a Church. We took a tri-pod and two cameras. At the Shard, we recorded using both the cameras on the tri-pod and, the camera seperately to give a hand-held effect. We panned left and right to try and get the full effect of the Shard and, we titled the cameras going from top to bottom and from bottom to top. As we traveled deeper into London, we also decided it was necessary to record the outside of a church, again using the tri-pod and camera together and then the camera seperately. These two establishing scenes that we shot were for our government scene       and for out evangelist scene in our title sequence. 
 
This is documented feedback from fellow students in our class. I took the initiative to make a power point presentation with all the feedback sheets that were filled in during the screening of our first rough draft of the title sequence. 


For our title sequence, we have decided to create a map consisting of the different names of our cults and groups. It features a futuristic outtake of a city and includes highlighted areas of where the different cults are staying. We created the map using Photoshop and we managed to find the font of 'Orion' for the typography used on our map.

This is our audience profile for our film 'Genesis - The Uprising" 


Storyboards

For our initial ideas we had to storyboard what our idea was to get a visual idea of what we first thought of to set our creation in stone. We storyboarded our ideas by drawing out each major scene and the types of camera shots and angles we'd be using. Although this isn't necessarily the final copy/version of the way our title sequence looks, it is a rough idea as to how we want the finished version of our title sequence to look like. 









In order to keep track of filming dates and plans Tyrell, Jacob and I planned when we would meet on arranged dates.This was also to keep track of what equipment was needed for each day and who will be there.

Sunday 13 March 2016

Research into similar title sequences

When looking into other movies that are similar to the groups title sequence idea and genre, their title sequences usually involved a particular style of typography and, the style of the title sequence being either computer graphics based or, real life acting and gritty. For our title sequence, we have researched 2 other title sequences within the dystopian genre; The Matrix and Children of Men. The Matrix's title sequence is completely CGI based whereas the Children of Men's title sequence is real life acting based. So, for our title sequence, we are looking to essentially combine the two ideas of graphics based (the map) and real life acting. These techniques have both been shown to be useful and effective for them two movies so, we feel it is appropriate to incorporate these ideas in to our title sequence.

Shooting locations

Our initial location is at The Shard in London, this is our establishing shot and it's a shot where we pan from top to bottom and then pan from Left to right to set the scene. The great thing about using the shard is that we had a massively populated work place, to simulate workers and people who work for the government in our sequence. The drama room is a go to place for the illuminati and also the evangelicalists as the darkness provided great eeriness for the illuminati but the lights in the drama room also provided lights that acted as "the bright white light" being projected from the big guy upstairs, to give it a spiritual feel and atmosphere. Our school library or "Ibrary" was the main setting for our government scene, it provided a long table and a big projector which was perfect for displaying the map and the table set the scene really well as it most defiantly looked like a confrence meeting. Last but not least was our location "Fanny on the hill park" which is a park near our school which has a wooded area, which Tyrell and I saw fit to be our location for the scavengers. This is where we made a stick hut and camp Fire to help create the setting of our scavengers. Just round the corner from the wooded area was a concrete road with graffiti along the walls , so I took this as an opportunity to get some montage shots , where I tracked along the walls and got shots of broken fences to create the setting of chaos.

What's involved with our title sequence

Our title sequence involves shots of a high tech map, created by the government. This map shows where in the dystopian city these different cults and communities actually live in. The map is shown within a conference room which consists of all of the other government members, almost as if a meeting as to how the government can take out the cults. As the narration goes on, we will be shown the different cults through 10-15 second clips. The casts, production companies and, the title of the movie will be displayed at the end of our sequence.
For our title sequence, we have decided to go for the theme of a Dystopian-action themed genre. The reasoning behind this is due to our budget (which is set at $156million). With this given budget, this allows our group to go for the route of a more action themed movie. The narrative for our groups title sequence consists of the idea of a government owned society (set in a dystopian future) that is looking to be overthrown by different and smaller cults/communities. These cults consists of: The Illuminati Scavengers Rebels The Government The Evangelists
Tyrell, Jacob and I have begun working on editing our title sequence for Media studies.We have been staying behind multiple days after school to edit the shots we've recorded for our title sequence over the past week using Final Cut Pro on the Apple iMac. We have done multiple draft versions of our title sequence, ensuring that we can edit and alter what we already have so that it fits our idea and direction for the genre, we want to ensure that we get the best shots and By filming multiple shots and different angles we have so much more to work with. In terms of altering certain things for our idea, we found we had to re-shoot a scene. For our Illuminati sequence, we originally discovered that the file hadn't saved and loaded properly onto Final Cut, meaning that we unfortunately lost the footage. But, on Thursday 3rd March, we decided to take the initiative and re-shoot our Illuminati sequence again, using the same drama room as before where We experimented around with the lighting equipments provided in order to get our desired effect. Hopefully this time round with this experience of our last shoot we can get better lighting. Although k was happy with how it tinted out, once edited it was way too dark. So this was a chance to re-make the gold. On top of this, we decided to shoot the scene (again on Thursday 3rd March) for the Evangelists and the Illuminati scene. We again used the drama department and played around with the different varieties of lighting equipments that were provided. We used symbolic religious imagery in terms of Mise-En-Scene as the setting was brightly lit, almost as if this scene was spiritual and illuminating. We also used a T-pose to crudely imitate Jesus on a cross. We still have to shoot one more scene which shows the government leader entering into the building and meeting his secretary who directs him to his meeting and then, we should have the majority of the title sequence finished (along with any more re-shoots that may need to be considered).
Today was the day Tyrell , Jacob and I decided to go to the drama room and start to shoot our illuminati scene. We knew the drama room would be perfect as it's a dark room and there are lights that can be controlled via a control panel... Genius. So with some adjustments to light levels , making it dark but still light enough to see Jacob emerge out of the darkness to add an eeriness to te scene. This was purely an experiment at first , to see what light looks good amd what didn't work.

As cinematographer, I was in charge of filming again , so I tried to experiment with using a crane to get high angle shots of Jacob standing in the middle of a make shift "Devils trap" but the footage was terrible and unusable. However, I'm now educated on what works and what doesn't. As a group we decided that it was best to just have the camera on a tripod and have Jacob emerge out of the darkness. We achieved this affect by adjusting the focus on Jacob as he walked forward and also having the lights behind the camera on but the ones behind him
Off to have the emergence effect. Overall I was happy with the footage we obtained today.
Tyrell, Jacob and I managed to get the help of some eager sixth form students to start filming the essential parts of our title sequence, the scene that includes the government conference. I was in charge of cinematography today , so I really wanted to make sure this scene was perfect and symmetrical because I felt that this would give it a professional feel to it and would add to the seriousness of this scene for our sequence. I mainly excuted shots like mid shots and establishing shots but I also included some tracking as well as match on action - which was executed via final cut editing. I also never broke the 180 degree rule when changing angles and shots. 

We managed to a few vital scenes done , however we need a high angle shot of two sixth form students who play lead roles in this sequence to enter the building so this sequence makes sense, as of right now it's a little jumpy. We gathered the students round the table and projected our map onto the board and made out that this was a meeting about the other groups. This was clear , but it was unclear that this was the government so we are trying new ways to make this clear for the audience to see. 

Rebel scene re-shoot

Today Tyrell , Jacob and I managed to have the hell of a few other sixth former students to help re-shoot our rebels scene in our title sequence as we weren't happy using the same cast for the rebels and the scavengers. We also was unhappy with mise-en-Scene and cinematography, so this was a needed reshoot to make our title sequence better. The current state of our title sequence made it unclear who the rebels were , so we added a high angle shot and are going to add a CCTV footage effect and label the security camera with "rebels" to make it clear for the audience. With mise-en-scene , I drew some "tattoos" on our cast including Jacob and I to make the part seem more convincing. We had "the rebels" tattooed onto our forearms and had some close up shots to help establish to the audience that we were in fact the rebels. We really wanted to make it clear as it was unclear before.

We took this opportunity to experiment further with more complicated and interesting cinematography, for example:
Focus pulls
High angle shots
Panning
Found footage / hand held
And so on , although in our scavenger scenes as well as our other scenes, we have used similar shots but this was the perfect time to perfect these cinematography shots.

Friday 26 February 2016

Today i was unable to attend my group with their work, but my group members Tyrell and Jacob decided to start working on a map for our title sequence. This map is to show the locations of each 'colt' in the city. Due to being in some form of future, as a group we decided to go for a hologram, 'furturistic' look to make the audience notice there's a clear time diffrence. Tyrell and Jacob then proceeded to get an image off google and then process it through photoshop on an iMac at school. They got the font from a website 'dafont' that would fit the genre of our film.
My group and I are getting closer to filming and creating our production of our title sequence, a dystpian-action set in the very near future called 'Genysis: The Uprising'. I'll be documenting what my group and I do and what progress we make. Any changes, new decisions or ideas, i will be updating my blog.

Monday 18 January 2016

Catch Me If You Can : Title Sequence Analysis.
‘Catch Me If You Can’ portrays a mysterious style title sequence, which both gives the viewer a small insight to the basic plot of the film, but also keeps them in suspense and maybe keeps them guessing before it has even started. This animated title sequence establishes the main character, narrative and a brief understanding of the setting. As soon as the title sequence starts, the viewer hears the soundtrack (diegetic sound) which sounds mysterious, which reflects the genre of the film and This mystery is kept up throughout the sequence as the animated man, who appears to be representing the main character, spends the whole duration of the title sequence trying to hide or disguise himself, and looks as if he is trying to stay away from another character.

The ‘main character’ moves very smoothly throughout the whole thing, which makes him look as if he can keep his ‘cool’ in the sense he seems to keep calm, even when it seems like he is in danger. When he is put into a new situation, he seems to stand around for a short amount of time and looks like he is watching the people around him, and then changes his outfit and therefore blends in with the surroundings. This puts across the idea of disguises, which could then lead to the idea of him trying to fool people, which could suggest the film is based around a con artist of some sort.


There are lots of indications of transport, which suggests he moves around a lot, perhaps linking in with the title and trying to keep away from someone who is chasing him. When it seems like he is going to be caught, a new character comes on screen and the soundtrack becomes quite dramatic. This causes suspense and tension among the viewers, and makes them expect something. However, when he isn’t caught it calms down, again suggesting ideas to do with the title “Catch Me If You Can” suggesting he is going to make it difficult. This difficulty is definitely portrayed in the title sequence. It holds quite a lot of tension as well, which perhaps sets up the audience to expect a lot of tension and drama in the film. The actual titles are in-cooperated in the animation, and are smooth transitions. They run nicely with the story and the events occurring in the sequence; this is an effective title sequence as it sets up the film for the viewer and gives them a small idea of what the film is about. It is a quirky and an interesting piece to watch, so the audience straight away can determine if this is a film genre they’d be interested in. Spielberg portrays a dramatic and tense title sequence, reflecting the story of the main character successfully.
Forrest Gump : Title Sequence Analysis.
Forrest Gump title sequence conveys deep relaxing and peaceful feelings:  during the opening title sequence, the viewers follow the journey of the feather throughout the sky and the city, wondering where will it land, because the route of the feather gains a meaning of fate and destiny. In fact, it is where the feather will land that the story will begin. It’s exactly when it lands on Forrest Gump’s foot that the audience is taken off from this feeling of endless peace, because the feather is no longer wondering freely with only the chance of wind direction to guide its path, like a destiny. The feather went wherever the wind took it and by chance it landed at forests feet. This suggests that metaphorically Forrest is the feather and he never tried to control his destiny just like the feather and he went wherever life took him.

The feather appears to be the most significant thing in this film already and it’s only a few seconds in. There’s celestial imagery with the feather as it is a white feather suggesting its untainted and pure, almost as if it’s been plucked from the wing of an angel and since the feather itself has come from above floating downwards towards Forrest Gump the idea that perhaps Forrest Gump is being watch by a higher power or a Guardian Angel. I believe this could be the case because as I’ve seen the film, I know that Forrest becomes extremely well off, avoids major tragedies and survives the Vietnam war as well as other life threatening events.


Generically, the font used throughout the title sequence is very slim and elegant; mostly used in dramas to be subtle with the fonts so the audience ca focus on the film itself. The colour of the font is white, again to avoid much attention being taken from the main narrative but to also have some relevance to the feather being presented on the screen.
Watchmen Title Sequence Analysis.
The first thing that strikes you when you see the Watchmen title sequence is the choice of soundtrack. The last thing you expect to hear when watching a thriller is the non-diegetic tune of Bob Dylan’s “Times they are a changing”. The use of folk music in a title sequence of a thriller challenges the normal conventions of using dark and gritty sounds and music to set the tone. The use of this song is almost as if its contrapuntal sound as it doesn’t match the scenes that are happening but being mixed with the 1960’s nostalgia going on in the rest of the sequence really sets the tone of the film and explains it’s setting well.

We see that a large majority of the characters are in rather extravagant costumes. This gives a key insight into what role they may play in the movie. The costumes are similar to ones you may find in a comic book or graphic novel suggesting they may be “Super heroes” or “Super villains”. However, we also see them grappling and fighting with men that appear to be armed, suggesting that they might actually be the good guys, making the idea of “Super Villains” less likely. The use of lighting in these sequences are also quite interesting and appears to challenge thriller convention. The fact that each character starts of in shadow is normal for a thriller however each character is then light up brightly giving the impression of a camera flash. This places the character in what appears to be a position of respect and authority because they are lit up more than the surrounding people and environment. The camera flash also ties in well with the song, with the photos recording the characters into history, recording how the times “are a changing”.


The font in the title sequence does not break thriller convention really, however it is unconventional. The font used is large, bold and yellow. Not something you would expect to find in a serious thriller film. This font would be better suited to a comic book, showing us that this may not be an altogether realistic film. This does not necessarily show that this film is not serious however it shows that the concepts may not be realistic, e.g. Superheroes.