Title Sequence Analysis- Max Mazur

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride

The opening sequence of The Corpse Bride focuses mainly on a Butterfly, flying around a village, showing characters and secenery. What is most noticable is that the Butterfly is the only thing in colour, everything else is black and white. The titles are placed over the picture and follow this pattern as well, being white in colour. These titles mainly focus on the Actors/Actresses providing their voices for the film, as well as the usual "Warner Bros Pictures Presents" at the start. The font itself is striking, mainly due to the spiky spirals on some letters. The spiral is a reccuring image in the film, with tops of towers, grass and even beards being spiral shapes. The spiral is also an image in The Nightmare Before Christmas, one of Burton's other films. For our titles, we plan to find a font similar in style, as we are making a horror/comedy film opening. We will possibly use white, but may use a colour that stands out more, for example red and our titles will include an imaginary production company name, our names and the name of the Film.

BBFC task - Edgar Pugh

For this task we had to make a poster on the regulations on U rated films presented by the BBFC. Using the Long Road film studies website we checked the regulations that restrict U rated films’ contence.

After studying the web page, we put together a poster clearly showing the BBFC’s regulations.

Back to the Future storyboarding task - Edgar Pugh

For this task we were shown the opening to the film ‘Back to the Future’ twice. The first time we just watched and thought about the camera shots ect. The second time we took notes on all the camerawork and shots, explaining what they do, where and why it’s appropriate.

We were then put into pairs and created a storyboard of the opening sequence based on our notes. In each tile we had to show what kind of movement is happening and where the camera is, and give a small analysis on it. 

Movie opening- Max Mazur

Monster House - PG

   Monster House is a 2006 film directed by Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg. It is about a house which comes to life and eats people and is surprisingly scary for a PG film
   It's opening sequence involves a small girl on a tricycle getting stuck on the lawn of the house and the angry old man who owns it storming out, scaring her away and breaking her trike. This is unusual for a PG opening, as PG films normally have a positive shot after a scary or sad moment.
    The film is a horror/comedy, the genre we are using for our film, so we can use elements of it for our film. One thing which struck me was the manner in which the man emerges from the house: the door slowly opens and his face melts in from the shadows. I thought this was a really good way of making the audience instantly dislike him. We could possibly use something like this for our film.

Children's film analysis: Edgar Pugh

Film Details

Camerawork
We will be using a variety of different shots in order to make our film as interesting as we can. If all the shots were of a similar framing, the film would get boring after a while. We will be using:

• Extreme Long shots
• Long Shots
• Close ups
• Medium long shots
• Medium close ups
• Over the shoulder shots
• and various different angles

Sound

We will be using little dialogue, mainly using the sounds of the forest. We will be making our own music on Garageband to feature in the background of the action. 

Editing

We will use Final Cut to edit our film. We will use transitions such as fades in order to create a slightly creepy feeling for the film, but combine this with the comical action in order to create irony.

Special Effects

We are not using special effects as we don't feel it is necessary as we are trying to make the film look as real as possible as it is set in the real world. 

Mise-en-Scene

At the start, we will focus heavily on the forest in order to establish the location. The location will be the main device we use to create an eerie atmosphere. 

Props

We are using bin-bags, string and "scream mask"s, all used to create the traps. These are the only props we will use.

Costume

We will be wearing ordinary clothes, as we are setting the film as if it is on a regular day.

Color/Lighting

The film will have a dull colour scheme, as it will be lit by natural light and the colours will be dark as we are filming in a shady area.

Film Opening Analysis Homework

Princess Mononoke - PG

   Princess Mononoke is a 1997 film directed by Hayao Miyazaki. The film is a Fantasy or Adventure, but has a meaning that is hidden to the seven-year-old viewers, but is very prominent to the older audience. The film is essentially an “environmental protection” film, and although it sounds cliché, the film puts across its message in a thoughtful way.

   The film opens with a shot of mountains, covered in mist. A narrator then has a short monologue, which talks about “Ancient times” and “Spirits of the Gods”, which immediately tells the viewer that the film is a Fantasy, set in the past. Whilst the narrator is talking, the camera tilts downwards now showing a forest scene. These opening shots establish the themes of “the natural environment”. The monologue, combined with the slow, haunting music and the slow, deliberate camera movements establish the dark mood of the film.

   Towards the end of this monologue, as the camera comes to rest just above the forest floor and the narrator mentions “Demons”, we see a shadowy creature moving in the distance and knocking over a large tree. This is foreshadowing the destruction of the forest at the conclusion. Just before the title screen appears, we see the leg of the demon, covered in strange purple worm-like creatures, and as the leg passes, it kills the grass where it stood. This again is foreshadowing of the destruction of the forest. This audience suspects that the narrative of the film will have something to do with this demon, but apart from the foreshadowing, that’s all the audience gets in regards to clues about the rest of the film.

   This is what the opening sequence does so successfully. It gives almost no concrete facts about the rest of the film, keeping the audience watching, wondering what is going to happen next.

These are photographs of our brainstorm and a diagram of our "trap" idea. This shows what our basic plot will be and how we will create our traps.

Preliminary Task (Video)

This is the film we created for our Preliminary Task. We feel it went reasonably well and it helped us learn to use the equipment and editing software.

Lesson Overviews

 6/10/11- Classification

  This lesson, we looked at the features of the two possible classifications for our film: U and PG. After comparing the features, we watched clips from four children's films (Up, Watership Down, Home Alone and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone) and tried to guess which of the two classifications each film was rated. Most of them were simple to guess, the exception being Watership Down, which was rated U, which was surprising for the amount of violence in it. 

Watership Down - rated a U!

   Classifications are given by the British Board  of Film Classification (BBFC), whose website we visited to establish the features of U and PG. We were assigned U, and our findings are featured on a separate post. This is the link to the U classification page and this is the PG section.

   It is important for film makers to have a target market when they make a film. Target market is the group of people whom the film is aimed at (in our case, children and families). It is important for film makers to follow the classification requirements carefully in order to create a film that will be rated appropriately for their target market.

   After considering both options, we have decided to create a film that is classed PG. We have decided this as it gives us more freedom about what we include in it. If we had chosen U, we would be much more limited in our choices, and we would like to open our options as much as possible.    

10/10/11- Storyboarding

   This lesson, we storyboarded the opening scene from Back to the Future (Storyboard posted earlier). Tom and I created a diagram of the entire room featured and drew arrows to show how each section of our storyboard related to the location in the room.

   In commercial film-making, storyboards are used for very much the same purpose, meaning the company will minimise shooting time, therefore decreasing the production cost significantly. Creating a storyboard before the final product will also enable film makers to edit their ideas at a much earlier stage: it's a lot easier to re-draw a couple of images than re-film an entire scene if the director feels the framing should be different.

   It is important to create a storyboard for our children's film, as it will give us an idea about what exactly we will film, and how many shots we will need, therefore decreasing time spent filming and give us more time to edit and make the film look professional. It will also help us visualise how the finished film will look.

Classification

Storyboards

Storyboard Lesson. The first is by James and Edgar, and the second is by Tom and Max.