Opening Title Fonts

Above are three fonts which could possibly be used to display our opening titles. In descending order the fonts are STFangsong, Century Gothic and Euphemia UCAS. We felt that the fonts Century Gothic and Euphemia UCAS were two similar but both still would have been appropriate for use in our film opening. This is because they are simple, clear fonts. We have decided to use STFangsong as the font used in our opening titles. A space has be made between each letters to make the writing clear and easier to read. This font is simplistic and doesn't look flashy or expensive. We wanted to achieve this effect as our opening is for a brtish socialist drama and not some hugely edited hollywood movie.

Research into British Socialist Drama Opening Credits

As well as filming our opening to a British socialist drama we also need to create opening credits. In order to do this I looked at the opening sequences of films by British directors Shane Meadows and Ken Loach. I decided to analyse the opening credits of 'This is England' and 'Raining Stones.'

The opening credits used in Ken Loach's 'Raining Stones' are very simple and not very artistic. The font colour is white and the text is centred in the frame. These credits are made simple as it helps set the mood of british drama and not try and make it appear like some big Hollywood production. The names of the actors and team involved with the film are in large where as the title of thier role in the film appears small abve their name. The titles also appear still and do not having any transtions or effects.

In Shane Meadows' 'This is England' again a white coloured font is used for the credits, however, the font type appears slightly more artistic. It appears like torn paper. This ties in with the narrative of the film which involves destruction and conflicts between two different nationalities. Again this socialist drama does not use flashy effects or transitions with its opening titles.

In general 'Raining Stones' uses simpler credits than 'This is England', however the credits in 'This is England' have a font style that ties in with the narrative.

I think we will probably use very simple lettering similar to that in Raining Stones opening, plain white, although probably a little thinner, which will fit within the conventions of the genre whilst being striking and fitting with the feel and mise en scene of the opening.

Second Film Opening Analysis

I have chosen to analyse the opening sequence of British socialist drama 'This is England' written and directed by Shane Meadows. The film looks at the joining of two races from the typical white British skinheads to the world of Asian and black culture. The narrative is set around the time of the British national front party who were believed to be a racist group during the 70's and 80's.

The opening sequence begins with British Prime minister Margaret Thatcher driving a truck whilst wearing a safety helmet trying to being a working class women of the British nation.

The opening holds many recognisable British historical events such as the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana and scenes of the Falklands war. It also shows a clip of British music show Top of the Pops which is an icon of British music. This is mise-en-scene which is typical to the genre, a British socialist drama. Other memorable icon images of Britain are used such as vandalised council estates and games such as the rubiks cube.

The non diegetic ska/reggae soundtrack contrasts with the fact that it is a British socialist drama and at this time there was a conflict between typical Brits and legal immigrants, this is shown in the opening of the film as an Asian family's house window has been bricked which reflects the racial issues during this time.

When it comes to camera work long shots are used. No fast, flashing images like in Hollywood films are used as this is made by a lower budget production company and they are trying to get the events to be portrayed realistically as if the audience were actually there when the events were happening. This allows the audience to have a greater connection and understanding of the film.

The character used in the opening are selected well such as Margaret Thatcher, British Prime minister wearing her navy blue dress suit, manly Brits wearing their Doc Martins and Ben Sherman shirts and fighting troops in their war gear.

Shane Meadows here has successfully created a memorable British socialist drama using iconic footage and images that makes Britain a memorable place today.


Link: to 'This is England' Opening scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqzFuJbGY2o

Opening Sequence Research

We watched a few different title sequences from various different production companies in order to identify some of the conventions and similar techniques used in title sequences.

This will then be useful to us because it means we can use these sort of things in our opening sequence/title sequence

We chose to look primarily at the opening of Juno created by Shadowplay Productions and Rock 'n' Rolla created by Prologuefilms. These would be particularly interesting to see if they have any similarities in their conventions because they're such different films.


Conventions:

-Both opening sequences use songs, which set the tone for the film. Rock 'n' Rolla having a loud brash rock song, and Juno having a acoustic love song.
-They both also used animation in their opening sequences, animation is a clever media to use in opening sequence because it can be done alot cheaper and is often useful because you can be quite stylistic. It is also very eyecatching. Often title sequences will use animation for this reason, however this is not always the case. They are more often used in title sequences, perhaps as part of a larger opening sequence. In both these cases as a lot of opening sequences have they have live action sequences which then goes into an animated sequence for the titles. This is something we might possibly be able to do, depending on the practicality of this with our final idea.
- They also both had titles/credits and production company logo (or 2 in the case of Rock 'n' Rolla), this is something ALL opening sequences have, for obvious reasons.
- They also both introduced the main protagonist or one/or more of the main protagonists, something which most opening sequences do.
-Opening sequences also generally set up the tone of the film and you can often tell what sort of film it's going to be from the opening sequence.


-The Rock 'n' Rolla opening also had a voice over which is sometimes used in opening sequences (again often for introducing protagonists), although not always as in the case of the Juno opening sequence.

-Opening sequences also almost always include the title of the film, however this is not always the case. The best example of this I can think of is The Dark Knight in which 'The Dark Knight' comes up at the end of the film.

All these sort of things often crop up in the opening sequences of films, and we might be able to some or all of them in our own opening sequence