Title Research: Us

-How many titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film?

One of the movies we chose to research was US. There are 25 titles in the opening sequence of the film. Some of these include actors, the director, and producers.

-What images are prioritized in the opening sequence?

Throughout the opening sequence, there is a tv screen of the news and a program. The family is at a fair or carnival. There are fair games and rides, people walking, the beach, and people having fun. The sky is thundering and it is raining. There is this game that says find yourself with a lot of mirrors. In one clip the girl is wearing a shirt that says Micheal Jackson's thriller shirt.

-What connotations do the images carry?

The images give a sense of what the movie will be about at first it seems fun, but then it take a turn. This tells me that the movie will most likely be scary because of the shot before the credits begin. The little girl opens her mouth widely and shockingly like she just saw something. The scenes are also dark which makes it scarier. To get to the credits there is an eyline match to some bunnies. In one clip the girl is wearing a shirt that says Micheal Jackson's thriller this shows the time period it is and it kind of sets a chilling tone.

-How is genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outside?

The clips of the building that says fine yourself reinforce the genre through symbolic codes. It is dark and there is no one in there besides the little girl. The shirt she wins also reinforces the genre, it implies that the family went to the fair around October.

-How does the film establish an enigma for the outset?

It establishes enigma by cutting to the titles right when the girl gets to the mirror. The audience is left wondering what exactly she saw, but they have to watch the rest of the movie if they want to find out.

-What strategies are used to ensure the film appeals to its target audience?

To appeal to its target audience the film starts off with and endings with the girls looking scared. This suggests that the rest of the movie is going to be scary which leaves people wanting more. All the darkness, when she is on the beach, sets the tone for the rest of the movie.

-How has technology been used effectively? 

There are a lot of different angles and transitions like tracking shots, jump-cuts, and close-ups. The score when she is in the building turns from calming to silence to just whistling. This makes it a lot more terrifying and makes it more suspenseful. Nothing too gory has happened yet, but it keeps you on your toes. The editing is good and there are a lot of eyeline matches in the opening.

Title Research: Watch the Title

Today we researched titles for our final task. The website homepage includes a lot of movies, tv shows, and animations. We were able to find free movies and watch openings for research. The genre my group had was thriller, there were a lot of thriller movies on the site. We are researching titles because we need to know how to set them up correctly for our movie. By looking them up we are able to see how it is supposed to look. We also see where they need to be placed. This makes us think about what could go into our movie and what would look the best. I was able to see the differences in all the movies and what we would like the most. It showed me what typical thriller movie openings and tiles look like. This will come in handy when making the movie. We will be able to come back to this if we need to see how to do it correctly. This was a helpful website and gave us the opportunity to make our movie look good. I have now learned more about titles. I cannot wait to start the filing process for our movie.

Title Research: It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World

How many titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film? 
 The film had 26  title sequences.

What images are prioritized in the opening sequence?
A ball and cartoon people figures were prioritized.

What connotations do the images carry?
The images carry confusion, haphazardness, and instability.

How is genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outside?
Multiple conundrums are flashed throughout the titles leaving viewers wondering what exactly is going on and why are these images important to the movie. It also leaves them questioning what to expect in the movie.

What strategies are used to ensure the film appeals to its target audience? 
The movie starts with a cartoon man holding a huge giant ball and the title sequence ends with him being trampled by other cartoon people. This strategy has viewers focusing on two objects and having them recognize those things throughout, making them important to the movie. Viewers will then now be looking for the ball and cartoon man throughout the movie, keeping them engaged.

How has technology been used effectively?
Lots of jumpcuts and incidental music. The incidental is an amusement park theme, but with the number of times it's used viewers will be thinking of this movie when heard anywhere else.

Title Research: Art of the Title

Today we researched more titles for our movie. We looked at a website called Art of the Title to look out how titles are made and samples of what we should have in our movie title. We watched openings form movies and picked our top movie openings we want to recreate.  Since my group chose thiller as the genre we want our movie to be, we looked at some thiller movies. There was a good amount of thillers to pick which opening we wanted to use. The movies helped us figure out what to include in our title and where to place them. This lets us think more creatively about our movie. We were able to see the differences and similarities of thiller sequences. A thriller title sequence always gets viewers scared and anticipating the start of the movie.  Thrillers have to come up with unique ways to scare a viewer into watching with their title sequence. They can't continue using the same title sequence or viewers will be disinterested in the movie from start. We will come back to this website in case we need more inspiration or a reference on how a title sequence was done. This website helped us learn more about the movie/film making process. Our movie can now look more professional because we learned how to make title sequences by this website. This website is very helpful to teach anyone who needs to learn how to make title sequences or even give experts some ideas on what their title sequence should look like.

Genre Research: Glass

Camera Angles: 
Establishing shot: Old room

Close up: Old man mouth 

Long shot: Guy walking through the door 

Medium shot: Guy standing 

Three shot: Three girls tied to a pole 

One-shot: Old man standing in a white room with only a bed in there

Shot reverse shot: Old man standing in a white room to someone talking through a mic back to the man in the room

Common Mis-En-Scene:
Costume: Old man and a young adult man wear hospital clothes. Black old man wearing a purple suit. 

Lighting: sunlight, low key lighting, and fluorescent. 

Actors: Two old men and a young man (main characters) 

Makeup: gray dye in hair 

Props: wheelchair 

Settings: abandoned building, hospital, and outside

Common Editing: 
Jumpcut: Woman looking at the young guy and the young guy looking at the woman

Flashback: Showing the past of the young main character and what is happening in the present with his actions 

Common Element: The main characters are considered villains fighting real-life heroes. 

Common Sound: 
Diegetic: talking, footsteps, door opening 

Incidental: creepy tick-tock sound 

Elements I like: It changed the viewpoint of what a villain is supposed to look like and act

Elements I disliked:  There’s not much of a feeling that can be felt in the movie. It’s very redundant in the way one of the main characters is continuously trying to convince the other main character that he is strong and that he can help the both of them escape and take control. 

Movie poster: 
Movie poster: 

Genre Research: Suicide Squad

Camera Angles: 
Establishing shot: The movie starts off at Black Site in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana 

High angle: City buildings 

Close up: Harley Quinn's face upside down. 

Long shot: Harley Quinn hanging upside down in a cage. 

Medium close-up: Deadshot setting a device on a fence through his car window. 

Two- shot: Deadshot talking to a guard through a small window in a door. Deadshot walking with his daughter carrying bags/gifts. Harley Quinn talking to the Joker. 

Over the shoulder: Deadshot and his daughter talking. 

Shot reverse shot: Deadshot walking to a door, a guard talking to Floyd through the door on the other side, and Floyd talking back on his side. 

Common Mis-En-Scene:
Costume: Harley Quinn in rags. Harley Quinn in a gold short dress. Deadshot in a trench coat.  Harley Quinn wearing a white coat, glasses, and black heels. Harley Quinn wearing a ripped shirt, stockings, sneakers, red jacket, chocker, leather glove, spike bracelets, Bobby pin earrings. Deadshot in army gear ( bulletproof vest, boots, gun holsters) 

Lighting: Fluorescent(high and low), the moon 

Actors: Young adults- Two women and four men (main characters {villains turned into heroes[5] and a government soldier}) 
Middle Age- one woman and two men (side characters {government officials})

Makeup: Tattoos and dirt for Harley Quinn. Harley Quinn wearing red lipstick. Harley Quinn with blue and pink eye shadow, blue and pink hair dye (halfway), peeling nail polish on fingers. 

Props: guns, baseball bat, robotic eyepiece, samurai sword

Settings: Louisiana (inside cells/prison makeshifts, outside, inside a building 

Common Editing: 
Jumpcut: different parts of the fighting scene being shown

Flashback: Showing what happened to the villains before they were caught

Common Elements: Three big Fights between the villains turned into heroes with guards or people who work for the government, lots of weapons used, fast pace, explosions, and lots of stunts 

Common Sound: 
Diegetic: talking, book dropping, grunt 

Non-Diegetic: Cell opening with an electric buzz, planes flying high, gunshots, glass breaking, sword slices 

Score: upbeat Spanish music, dark music, ominous music, fast pace fighting music 

Elements I like: The fast pace of the movie and all the fighting being done. It gives pure adrenaline to the viewers and grabs their attention.  The showing of the betrayal is a plot twist viewers wouldn’t expect especially because of who betrayed them. 

Elements I disliked: You can see which characters in the villain/antihero group take charge and it seems like the group was made haphazardly based on what skills r need to achieve the main goal. The characters in the group don’t seem like they work together well. There is little to no emotional connection with the majority of the characters in this movie. 

Movie Poster: 

Genre Research: Spectre

Common Camera Angles:

Establishing shot: in the beginning, the setting was prepared to be taken place in Mexico City during the Day of the Dead. Then, towards the middle of the movie the setting changes to be located in Tangier, Morocco. 

High angle: Showed when the main character, Bond, is holding a gun and walking along the rooftops

Long shot: Showed in the beginning when Bond was posing for the intro

Medium shot: Showed when the character Bond and a side girl character was walking along the Day of the Dead Parade

Medium close-up: Showed when both Bond and the girl character was in the elevator together

Two shot: Showed both Bond and the girl character in the beginning

Three shot: Showed Bond and two other main characters in one room in the middle of the movie

Over the Shoulder shot: Showed when Bond was about to shoot the bad guys from the rooftops

Common Mis-En-Scene:

Costume- (beginning) skeletal attire for Day of the Dead Parade, then switches to formal suites during the chase 

                 (middle) winter attire when the characters were outside, then switches to casual wear when both the main characters are strolling along the Moroccan streets

                 (ending) both the hero and the villain was shown wearing formal suites once again

Lighting- (beginning) natural lighting since it was daytime

                (middle) low key lighting since the rooms shot in were dark 

                (ending) low key lighting since it was nighttime 

Actors- middle-aged men for the villains and for the main hero, young female support character, and young male technician 

Makeup- skeletal masks for Day of the Dead themed parade, Blood stains, sweat, and scars (mainly on one of the villain's eyes)

Props- Helicopter, guns, and skeletal themed staff (used in the beginning of the film)

Settings- Film was recorded in popular places such as Rome, Morocco, Tokyo, Austria, Mexico City, and London

Common Editing:

Fade out: In the beginning, the scene goes from a black screen to the setting of Mexico City

Eye-line Match: When bond was about to shoot at the bad guys it shows the the two bad guys he was looking at in the beginning

Iris In: Mimicking the original James Bond movie, the film started off showing a black screen that follows up by a white circle forming in the center

Common Elements:

The film included chase scenes, high levels of energy/tension, fights between the villain and the main protagonist, stunts such as when Bond was trying to save himself from getting crushed by the collapsing building, and various explosions

Common Sounds:

Diegetic Sounds: car sirens, windows breaking, people clapping, trumpets playing, people cheering, collapsing building

Non-Diegetic Sounds: gun shots, propellers from the helicopter, explosions

Score: fiesta styled music playing during the Day of the Dead Parade, highly energized music during chase/fight scenes

Elements I like of the Movie:

What I liked about the movie was the various settings the movie managed to incorporate. Usually within films there would only be a couple of settings, but the movie Spectre was able to take place in more than just a couple of popular places.

Elements I Disliked of the Movie:

Within the first ten minutes of the film, there was scenes that showed explosions and chase/fight scenes in order to draw the attention of the viewers. However, it would have made the movie seem more natural if the action scenes were done a little bit more passed the beginning. 

Movie Poster for Spectre (2015):