Order of Titles

There is a specific order of what names and what jobs are seen first by the audience on the screen, whether the titles be on a coloured solid background or whether they are placed on the action. We have learnt this order as a 'rule' in order to ensure that we follow this.
The orders as follows; 

• Name of the studio
• Name of the production company
• Starring
• Filmed by (cinematography)
• Sound (if necessary)
• Editor
• Producer
• Director

We have followed this order so that we stick to the rule so that it is clear who the most important people within the film actually are. In our case, all titles up until the end of the actors/actresses names (starring), are on a black background in white writing. They appear using a film dissolve and when they come on and off I have made sure in editing that they appear to the sound of the audio. Obviously at this point, working with the sound, a few changes can be made, in order to create as much tension for the audience as we can.

From our research, and focusing on the psychological thriller genre, these opening credits are shown in the beginning of the opening sequence (usually within the first quarter but in only some cases the first half), as the codes and conventions of this genre show this is a normality. We have set these opening credits fairly and have explained through them the workload that has been completed by the team.

Our titles appear as below:

Name of studio
motion cube pictures presents

Name of production company

a PCLA film

Starring
Aman Dhillon

Luke Mayes

Lisa Machin

Filmed by (cinematographer)

Priyanka Chawla

Sound

Luke Mayes

Editor

Chelsea Wilson

Producer

Priyanka Chawla

Director

Chelsea Wilson

Final Titles

Independently, I have created the final titles for the sequence, I have used different sections of adobe premier and looked online at youtube.com tutorials to help me. I started by using the transitions and adobe premier provided me with, but by delving deeper into the program I could see that there were more technical ways to create the 'fades' and the 'slides' I wanted for the titles. It has taken me a reasonable amount of time to create these titles as I worked extremely hard to get them perfect for our opening. I had to use more features in adobe premier and I made use of photoshop. I placed the titles I wanted to create onto a grid and  had to ensure that the positioning was right, for example the 'a pcla film' had to slide on, so I needed to ensure that I create the right feeling for the audience. I feel that by using my initiative and looking at tutorials online, I have broadened by skills set which will help me within the future and help me when I progress with the media course. I used a different font for the two companies we have used

motion cube pictures presents 

a pcla film

However I then changed the font for the other titles (director, producer, etc).
We finally decided on the harting font, as it fit in the genre for a psychological thriller theme that we wanted to match our opening sequence. The font we used looked like it had been scratched. It was used to give the audience an eery feel. It was used to build tension. I hoped that my group would agree with the way I created the titles and the way I had presented them to create meaning for the audience. These titles were also placed in different parts of the screen, and the way that the sound matches them, creates dramatic tension for the audience. However later on in the sequence, we see the crew titles appear on the action. Although, the director is seen as the most important figure in making the opening sequence, their title has been enlarged and centred in the screen to show importance. 

Overall, I think that I have created meaning for the audience. I spent a lot of time focusing on the titles and watching other psychological thriller opening sequences such as films created by Alfred Hitchcock within this genre. I believe that I have used films such as  'Se7en' and 'Psycho' to influence me in terms of font and technically the way that the titles enter and exit the screen. I looked in detail at how long a title should stay on the screen for in order for the audience to be able to read it but to avoid the audience becoming bored, as this would completely defeat the object of keeping the audience engaged and keeping a constant state of meaning for the audience to relate to. 

Black and White?

Colour films were introduced in the 1930's/1940's, however they were very expensive to produce , leading most production companies unable to afford to create these colour films; this is why a lot of films continued to be created in black and white until a lot later. Black and white gives a sense of originality to the audience, it is fact that they also make the audience feel slightly at ease. Black and white films are also knows for creating tension for the audience.    

A famous modern film, created in 2012 called Tabu, was created in black and white.

This film was directed by the famous Miguel, the film is set in 1930's for part of the film and the 1960's for the other. It is typically expected that it would be created in black and white. The film begins loud, with full sound, but soon degrades from this into silence. This leads us to believe that creating a film in black and white allows us to completely change our storyline and change the mood that is represented to the audience.



We have been looking into changing our opening sequence and making it black and white. However it has got to the stage where even with our research, we were still unsure about changing the colour balance of our opening to make it black and white. We do not want our opening sequence to appear as if it is a film noir. We want to make it clear that our opening sequence is partially a psychological thriller and an action thriller. Although from our research we have learned that as a part of the psychological thriller, it is common to see these thriller changed to black and white, however or research on action thrillers shows differently.

Progression

Over the last few weeks I have seen a lot of improvements within my group and also within myself, I know that my skills base has expanded and I have made a lot of personal progress in terms of my confidence for filming and editing of our opening. In the last week I have learnt how to make a title composition for the name of our film, I was pleased with it for a first attempt but after analysing it and looking at how it would appear in our sequence, I realised that there were a lot of changes I needed to make.

I have looked at this composition closely and in my opinion, the letters of the word 'chance' come in too quickly and it doesn't seem right and to me doesn't fit in correctly. I also do not like how we can see the letters at the bottom of the screen before they flip and come onto the screen, it doesn't flow correctly. My final problem with this composition is that the text is in a white font and the flashes behind the text are also white so we lose some of the letters behind the effect. I am going to re-make this and make the letters move not as fast and do my best to have the letters beginning off of the screen. I also think it may look better with a different effect behind the text; possibly just a plain black background behind the text.

Looking back at my skills base from the continuity task, I could not even film the most simplistic of shots and had to learn to edit from scratch, a few weeks ago the only editing technique I knew was how to cut using the razor tool on adobe premier pro. I can now edit using all sorts of tools, adding in transitions and effects such as dissolves, fades and wipes. My teachers were also pleased with the way I had applied my knowledge of parallel editing to show two different characters journey at the same time but still making it clear that it is not the same character especially using shots that do not show their faces.

In terms of my project; I was extremely behind regarding the work I had been assigned to help the group and pull the group forward with the project. However I soon fixed these issues, became more organised and realised how important it was to me and how much I wanted to do well. I now consider myself one of the leaders of the group, I feel that if I do not take the responsibility of delegating tasks within the group otherwise tasks do not seem to get done. I feel I have taken a lot on board and I have also taken a lot of tasks to do because I am unsure as to whether they will completed if I do not do them myself. The feedback we seem to get all of the time if that out group does not communicate enough, this is crucial that we communicate all of the time especially as the deadline is in less than two weeks. Another member of the group came up with the idea that we make a group chat via iMessage where we can share what we have been doing and letting each other know what needs to be done and also let each other know if we will not be attending a lesson and whether we are struggling with a task. This was a good idea until it was only used for people to discuss whether they would be in the lesson or not. No one told anyone if they had done any filming in their private time or whether they had completed a blog post or even gone onto our opening sequence and completing some editing. We all son realised that this was absolutely unacceptable; I have created an idea on the mac that our group uses for our opening sequence; we are supposed to at the end of us uploading or editing something we are supposed to make a note of it on the page I have set up, however I am the only member of the group who has put anything on this.

As a group I feel we have improved massively since the continuity task, we have been able to shoot a pan shot with accuracy, completely still camera and no problems; something we would never have thought we could have done when doing the continuity task. We did have an issue which we found earlier today which was the one of the members of my group had used their own personal camera to do some filming, the resolution and the size of the footage was completely different to the school cameras that we had used for other scenes. This was a major issue as when we tried to re-sioze it, the resolution was not the same and the footage was not clear.

     

Although this is a major set back as we now have to re-film the first 45 seconds of our opening sequence, it is a learning curve for the future. It will also help me next year where I will have to complete my project by myself. It was an easy mistake to make but it is also extremely crucial that we fix the issue.

Overall, the group has made sufficient progress in the last few weeks and I as an individual am surprised with myself in how much knowledge I now have in terms of filming and editing and also proud of myself in terms of confidence, I now feel that I can sit down and edit by myself ad go and do independent filming, I do not feel as if I need help all of the time and need support just in case I was confused.

The idea of a cube?

The name of our studio company for our film is 'motion cube pictures', this is the first of many titiles which will appear on our opening sequence, this will also appear on a black background with white writing. One of our original ideas was to have a rotating cube towards the top right hand corner of the screen. However this took further skills on different programs, something I was not skilled in, I attempted to further my skills again by watching more youtube tutorials. After this, it was taking more time and I found that it was a matter of trial and error. Another member of my group (Luke) was more experienced within this field and was more comfortable with what programs to use and and how they work.

However, after Luke had made a tester after he had got the cube to move; it was clear to the whole group that we didn't really like it. Also after feedback and looking at it when it had been put into the sequence with the rest of the footage; we believed that we could have been overcomplicating things. The sound that we have found at this point, also does not match the movement of the cube in order to build tension for the audience. (tester of video studio name below)

Changes to the narrative

Unfortunately, we have had to make some changes to our narrative. Whilst looking at our footage over and over again and taking into account the feedback we received from our teachers, it was a decision I had to make on behalf of the group as I was the only person present as other members of the group had prior arrangements. It was unfortunate that one of the scenes had to be cut but in order for the continuity of the title sequence to flow, it was vital that the narrative made sense. By keeping this scene in; the title sequence would not have made sense and the narrative would have been confusing for the audience. A our main focus is the audience and how they can relate to the narrative, I felt that by making this decision  our group would benefit and so would the project in terms of pleasing our target audience. This then meant that as we were approaching the deadline; I needed to communicate with my group quickly and make sure that they approved with the decision that I made and ensure that they were happy for me to plan a rough storyboard of a new scene to add onto the end. 

I also felt as I watched our project that the titles became boring and I strongly felt that the audience would be bored when watching it. Our titles originally took up around 40 seconds of the sequence, considering the project is only 2 minutes long; it is clear that the footage did not have much time to engage the audience and graso their attention back afte they had seen the titiles. Through my own decision but with help and feedback from my teachers, I made the choice to put the titles of cinematographer, sound editor, producer, editor on top of the action. At first I did the same with the director but I changed my mind as I did not believe that there was enough tension built when doing this. As we know from our research, the director is considered the most important person involved when creating a film. I felt it was a good idea and both my teachers supported and agreed with my decision, that I should switch back to the white writing on a black background for that final title before the final scene enters the screen.

Overall, I feel the decisions were correct and accurate. They continued to help us build tension within the narrative and I think that the changes will now allow the audience to connect more with the characters and the storyline. I have also made sure that when making these decisions I have not gone against the codes and conventions of our psychological thriller genre. 

Cutting of the car scene

Throughout looking at our title sequence and looking at how much footage we had already, and looking at how much time the titles were taking up of the title sequence, it was clear that the car scene was neither relevant or important enough to try and rush the rest of the title sequence to then have room and time for te car sequence at the end. It would have ruined the tension and the meaning that we have tried to create for the audience.

At this point, we have only filmed tester shoots for this scene; we have no definite footage that we could use for this scene. Although we have been organised with our filming so far we have had our fair share of problems. I do not believe that we would have got the perfect shots in order to create the meaning we want to present to our audience.

Priyanka and I had to make this decision on behalf of the group. We did not feel that it brought any significant importance to the clip. We also kept reminding ourselves that this is not a full film, it is only the opening 2 minutes. The car scene may come later in the film. This would be a plan if the project were to have been a longer sequence. All of our decisions have to be based around what meaning we are creating for the audience, how much tension it is presenting to the audience, and whether or not we are sustaining continuity within the thriller according to the codes and conventions of the specific sub-genre we are focusing on.