Title Sequence Coursework - History of Title Sequences

I found this video of the history of title sequences. This shows all the famous designers who made title sequences what they are now. These designers basically created the codes and conventions of film's title sequences. Designers like Saul Bass inspired many other to create title sequences that had meaning and creates the mood and atmosphere for the film.

Title Sequence Coursework - Designer Analysis 2

Paul Donnellon

Paul Donnellon studied animation and graphic design at Dun Laoighaire College of Art and Design. Paul moved to London to work with TVC. Paul Donnellon's first animation work was`When the Wind Blows' in 1986, as an assistant animator. From 2000 to 2002 Paul moved to the Oscar winning company The Mill as the consultant director of 3D animation. Paul Donnellon has now established his own company Voodoodog with David Obadiah. He is also makes an occasional visit to Beaconsfield to give a lecture for the National Film and Television School's animation course. He was nominated for an Emmy for his title sequence for the HBO film 'The Life and Death of Peter Sellers' and has made title sequences for films such as 'Smokin' Aces', 'Love in the Time of Cholera', and the 'Nanny McPhee' movies.

Some of Paul Donnellon's work:

• Smokin' Aces
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
• Nanny McPhee Returns
• Made of Honor 
• St Tranian's
• Love in the Time of Cholera
• Nanny McPhee
• The Life and Death of Peter Sellers
• When the Wind Blows
• The River King

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers

'The Life and Death of Peter Sellers' title sequence.

Paul Donnellon uses Graphic Design and Animation to make this title sequence. The title sequence shows the audience the genre of the film, which is comedy.Once the title sequence begins we see that it is very bright and colourful. Donnellon made it bright and used vivid colours to make the sequence look fun and exciting, almost comic like. The sequence sticks out and grabs the attention of the audience, pulling them in and engaging them. The typography also shows that the film will be fun and comical because it is made out of flowers that grow to cover the screen. 

Title Sequence Coursework - Designer Analysis 1

Saul Bass

Saul Bass is an American motion-picture designer-director. He is known for his imaginative, animated titles, prologues, and epilogues. He became commonly known after creating the title sequence for Otto Preminger’s film, The Man with the Golden Arm (1955).

Bass was from the Bronx, New York. He graduated James Monroe High School and studied at the Art Students League and attended night classes with György Kepes at Brooklyn College. He began his time in Hollywood in the 1940s, designing print advertisements for films, such as: Champion (1949), Death of a Salesman (1951) and The Moon is Blue (1953). Bass then collaborated with Otto Preminger, who also directed The Moon is Blue. Preminger was impressed with Bass’s work and asked him to produce a title sequence. Bass was one of the first to realise the creative potential of the opening and closing credits to a movie and enhanced the experience of the audience and contributed to the mood and the theme of the movie.

Some of Saul Bass’s work:

• Psycho
• Goodfellas
• Cape Fear
• The Age of Innocence
• Casino

Saul Bass was best known for his use of simple, geometry shapes and their symbolism. His posters had an strange ability to capture the mood of a film with simple shapes and images. This was his preferred method as opposed to using pictures of the film star. Bass often hand drew the images to create a casual appearance.

Title Sequence Coursework - Pitch(2)

This is our PowerPoint presentation of our pitch and the video of my partner and i pitching it.

In our lesson today, my partner and I presented our improved pitch to our class. I improved the pitch by changing all that was taken from the feedback,  from the first attempt. The time we will not need to improve and present again, but we can still make improvements from the feedback sheet that we have received

During the pitch, I think I was a lot more confident when presenting. I ensured that for this pitch that, my parent and I, both had the presentation printed out, with notes. This is prevent us looking up at the presentation and reading from the slides. We received feedback sheets again this week. I will analyse them and they will help us improve the important factors of the film. 

This time the feedback sheets have some different opinions on it. Most the feedback told us that we need to research into our target audience more, because it might be targeted at the wrong gender. I agree with because if the film is an Action Thriller then the target audience will be mainly aimed at males. This is because of the intense action and the male gaze theory. Some individual responses to the pitch was that the budget was to high, but to low for Christopher Nolan to direct the film, and that the narrative was a little confusing. I agree with both of these responses because I think my partner and I could have explained the narrative more, without confusing the class. Furthermore, I think that the budget should be lower, as these kinds of budgets are only used for really big budget films, which have large target audience ranges. However the budget would be too low for Christopher Nolan to direct as he normally gets paid large amounts of money for directing. I should have researched more into how much Nolan gets paid, as we would not be able to pay him enough for him to direct our film.

Title Sequence Coursework - Analysis 3

Splice

At the beginning of the Splice title sequence the audience are shown flickering x-rays of small animals, which are changing into the production company’s logo. This creates a dark, scary tone and atmosphere, and makes the audience feel uncomfortable. This suggests that the film is horror, as it makes you turn in your seat. Throughout the title sequence the camera seems to be being pushed through misty water in, which looks like the inside of a body. The pale, vain filled skin that the audience is shown will make their skin crawl. Being inside a body will make the audience feel uncomfortable and restricted. This connotes that the film is in the si-fi/body horror genre.

When the audience is show the inside of the pale skin, inside the body, they are shown scales soon after. This suggests that the person is not normal and is some type of creature.

The soundtrack in the title sequence is a eerie piano track, which continues the feeling of it being unnerving. As the title sequence continues the pace fastens as the audience are taken through the misty water faster. The track goes faster, which is parallel to what is happening on screen.

 As the music goes faster and travelling up through the body goes quickens, bubbles start to appear, we get the feeling of something exciting about to happen. However once everything slows down the audience sees that they were given false hope and suggests towards the end of the film, there will be no escape.

We see the typography that they have used to show the credits are formed from the creature’s veins. Around the name we see scales. This makes the audience feel uncomfortable again. This continues to suggest that the film is in the genre si-fi/body horror and shows it by the typography they use.
From the title sequence we see the character isn’t a person, but a creature. We understand this from all the features in the body that are not normal. For example the scales on her skin, the popping out veins, and the dark greenness of the skin.

Title Sequence Coursework - Pitch(1)

This is our PowerPoint presentation of our pitch and the video of my partner and I pitching it.

In our lesson today, my partner and I presented our pitch to our class. The pitch was about our film and this was the first time we pitched the idea. We have been given a lot of feedback that we can use to improve out pitch for next time. We will be presenting it again next week, when we have improved it.

During the pitch, I don’t think I was as confident as I should have been. When we present next week will ensure that I am ready and confident in what I have to say. In addition, we forgot to say the narrative of the film, which was indicated on most of the feedback sheets. For next time I will prepare some note for us to refer back to, so we don’t forget to say anything.
All the feedback sheets mostly indicated the same thing. On the sheets it shows that us choosing Liam Neeson to star in our film was a good idea. I think using Liam Neeson would be a good idea because his played similar characters in past. For example, he played Bryan Mills in Taken; this character is very similar to the main character in our film. Some criticism we got back was that we need a better target audience and a higher budget for the production company we have chosen. I agree with this and shall research more on how much Warner Bros spent on films that has similar concepts to ours.  In addition, the feedback told us that the gender target audience wasn’t stated in the presentation. Next time I will ensure that the gender target audience is included and explain why.

For next week, I will improve my pitch by taking the points from the feedback sheets and putting them into our presentation. I will improve on all the points and try to be more confident when speaking to the class.

Title Sequence Coursework - Films Which Helped With My Idea

Films that helped me with coming up with the narrative of my film were Spring Breakers and Taken. Spring Breakers inspired the idea of four girls robbing banks, which was originally four girls committing crimes in the Spring Breaks. The relationship between the father and the daughter in my narrative, is shown in Taken between the main character Bryan Mills and his daughter Kim. 

We used the small features from the films Spring Breakers and Taken to give us an idea of what kind of narrative we would want it to be. The ideas of the four girls committing crimes and the father-daughter relationship helped us built the narrative. We built a narrative around the idea by adding a storyline to it, making it interesting and engaging. By joining the features, of the four girls and the father-daughter relationship, together made the narrative exciting as we included the daughter as one of the four girls.