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Saturday, 10 December 2011

Personal response to the brief.

I am looking forward to creating an opening sequence to a film because I am interested in how the film and television industry works. I also hope to get some understanding from this task of how the camera crew, cast etc cope and work especially within a timetable. I am looking forward to the following weeks and the outcome of our project and matching it up to other opening sequences out there.

Tuesday, 6 December 2011

Analysis of title sequence 1*




Era, genre, story lines, topics, characters, location:
Ocean's 11 is a 1960 heist film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring five Rat Packers: Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin,Sammy Davis, Jr., and Joey Bishop.
Centered on a series of Las Vegas casino robberies, the film's other stars included Angie Dickinson, Cesar Romero, Richard Conte, Akim Tamiroff, Henry Silva, Ilka Chase, Norman Fell, Harry Wilson, and Buddy Lester, as well as cameo appearances by Shirley MacLaine,Red Skelton, and George Raft. 

Analysis of credit sequence 1*



Era, genre, location, story line, topics, characters:


Twin Peaks is an American television serial drama created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. The series follows the investigation headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper played by Kyle MacLachlan, of the murder of a popular teenager and homecoming queen, Laura Palmer played by Sheryl Lee. Twin Peaks' pilot episode was first broadcast on April 8, 1990 on ABC, which led to another seven episodes being produced and a second season, which aired until June 10, 1991. The show's name came from its setting, a small fictional Washington town. Exteriors were primarily filmed in Snoqualmie and North Bend in Washington, with additional exteriors shot in southern California. Most of the interior scenes were shot on standing sets in a San Fernando Valley warehouse.


Sound-dialogue, music and editing style, features and camera movement, framing and credits,text:


The slow music in the background ties in with the slow editing style of the credits. The credits show the main characters involved instead of showing all the camera crew and extras. The angles of the credits are all medium shots. The credits are also the same colour and font but alternate in size.

Monday, 5 December 2011

Analysis Opening Sequence 5*



Characters, era, genre of film, location, story line, topics 



City of God (Portuguese: Cidade de Deus) is a 2002 Brazilian crime drama film directed by Fernando Meirelles and co-directed by Kátia Lund, released in its home country in 2002 and worldwide in 2003. The story was adapted by Bráulio Mantovani from the 1997 novel of the same name written by Paulo Lins, but the characters are not fabricated and the plot is based upon real events. It shows the growth of organized crime in the Cidade de Deus suburb of Rio de Janeiro, between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1980s, with the closure of the film showing the war between the drug dealer Li'l Zé and criminal Knockout Ned. The tagline is "If you run, the beast catches; if you stay, the beast eats", (a proverb analogous to the English "Damned if you do, damned if you don't"). The cast includes Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino da Hora, Jonathan Haagensen, Douglas Silva, Alice Braga and Seu Jorge. Most of the actors were, in fact, residents of favelas such as Vidigal and the Cidade de Deus itself.

Sound-dialogue and music:


The fast music at the beginning and the extreme close up shots of the knife being sharpened against a stone indicates that they are killing chickens to prepare for a meal and celebration as people are also playing instruments and dancing. The dialogue is aggressive talk in portuguese from the gang and from a young man and his friend who talk about not coming in contact with the gang incase they will kill him.


Editing styles, features, camera movements and framing:
The editing styles and features in the 'City of God' opening sequence are clear as the fast, intrusive edits show two inter-connected storylines and take the audience back twenty years.

Sunday, 4 December 2011

Analysis Opening Sequence 4*



Era, genre of film:



Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Which is by Philip K. Dick.

Story line, topics, location and characters:

The film shows a dystopian Los Angeles in November 2019 in which genetically engineered organic robots called replicants which are visually indistinguishable from adult humans and are manufactured by the powerful Tyrell Corporation as well as by other "mega–manufacturers" around the world. Their use on Earth is banned and replicants are exclusively used for dangerous, menial or leisure work on off-world colonies. Replicants who defy the ban and return to Earth are hunted down and "retired" by police special operatives known as "Blade Runners". The plot focuses on a brutal and cunning group of recently escaped replicants hiding in Los Angeles and the burnt out expert Blade Runner, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), who reluctantly agrees to take on one more assignment to track them down.

Sound-dialogue, music and props, sets:
The siren like sound at the beginning over the brief description of what the film is about could be to create a tense ambience and to make the audience feel of edge. The props of the spaceships and the sound of explosions in Los Angeles shows how destructive the scene is. Later on in the film it includes different diegesis as the studio inserted a film-noir style voiceover narration from Harrison Ford against the wishes of the director and it was only years later when the 'Director's Cut' was released without the voice-over that the audience caught onto the fact that the original has a less anchored, more ambiguous narrative. In the meantime the film had become a cult classic with the voice-over, featuring lines like 'I didn't know how long we would have together, but then again, who does?', a huge aspect of the film's popular appeal.

Editing styles, features and camera movement, framing:

The editing styles and features are quick and intrusive, the purpose of this is to show the catastrophe going on in Los Angeles. It starts off with a close up of the writing, then medium shot of Los Angeles then close up of Ford's eye to show what he is looking out onto.

Saturday, 3 December 2011

Analysis Opening Sequence 3*




Era and genre of film:



Dr. No is a 1962 spy film, it is the first James Bond film and starring Sean Connery. Based on the 1958 Ian Fleming novel of the same name, it was adapted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, and Berkely Mather and was directed by Terence Young. The film was produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, a partnership that would continue until 1975.

Characters, location, story line and topics:

In the film, James Bond played by Sean Connery is sent to Jamaica on an investigation into the death of a fellow British agent. The murder trail leads him to the underground base of Dr. Julius No, who is plotting to disrupt an early American manned space launch with a radio beam weapon. Although the first of the Bond books to be made into a film, Dr. No was not the first of Fleming's novels, Casino Royale being the debut for the character; however, the film makes a few references to threads from earlier books.

Props, sound-dialogue, music 

At the beginning when the gun shot is let off and the James Bond theme starts that could be to show that the prop gun and the theme is connected with the main character, Bond and to also give away a bit to the audience about him and what he's like. Also the calypso version of 'Three Blind Mice' is in reference to three villains in the film. 

Editing style, features, camera movements and framing:

This opening sequence has become a recurring motif; an established convention expected by the audience.The style of edits and pace is quick and the edits are intrusive. It is close up shots of the coloured dots and the cast and crews names.