SOUNDTRACK ... Grr.

We have just been informed that we are not allowed to use the music we were going to use in the background of our film opening.
We are now in the process of making a new soundtrack in garage band that will have a similar effect as the song that we were going to use.

My (Jamie) Annalysis of Juno

• Juno's opening is in the style of a doodle. I feel that it is in this style because it looks as if it has been drawn by a bored teenager in class. This instantly gets across the teenage bit of the teenage rom com.

• The song in the background is probably the happiest and the 'loviest' that you could here with the lyrics talking about how close the two people are.
  

If I was a flower growing wild and free All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee. And if I was a tree growing tall and green All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

This song is constantly talking about love so this gets across to the audience that the film will be a romance.

discussion of all five genres

A supernatural thriller with a strong female lead
Definition: A film with a strong female main character which comes across supernatural events such as ghosts, vampires, werewolves etc.
Example: Others

A British social realist drama
Definition: 'Social realism in films is representative of real life, with all its difficulties. The stories and people portrayed are everyday characters, usually from working class backgrounds. Typically, films within the social realist canon are gritty, urban dramas about the struggle to survive the daily grind.' (Definition from http://filmstudies.suite101.com/article.cfm/social_realism_in_british_film)
Example: East is east, High hopes and anything by Ken Loach and Mike Leigh

An adventure story for younger audiences Definition: This genre always contains children as the lead and has fantastical events and usually involves the children traveling to distant fantasy lands.
Example: Jumanji, Zathura, Golden Compass, Narnia.

A teenage romantic comedy Definition: This genre will usually contain one teenager that tries to 'woo' the opposite sex, that they have usually loved for a very long time, with hilarious consequences.
Example: 10 Things I Hate About You

A crime caper with an ensemble cast
Definition: A group of professional/non-professional thief organise an incredibly deep plan to steal a lot of money. A group of people with equal screen time with no main characters.
Example: Oceans Eleven through to thirteen.

PRODUCTION COMPANY LOGO!!!

Ha!

We have been looking at some production logos to give us some ideas for our own.
We looked at the use of visuals, design, sound and animation (or not).

We looked at Paramount, Universal and Dreamworks.
All of the logos all had animation and they all flew on to the screen with music that gets louder as it gets closer to the end. this added impact at the end when everything has flown in and the logo is complete.

Paramount - followed the stars that circle the mountains falling from the sky and it tracks the stars as it moves to it's final position. The music starts very quiet and then the music has a crescendo and the music is loudest when the starts are circling the mountains to highlight the end.


Dreamworks- This starts with the fishing hook falling into the water and as it hits the water you get the music starting. The camera follows up the fishing line to a boy that is fishing off the moon. The moon then turns into a 'D' for dreamworks. The camera then pans across the word and zooms out to reveal the whole name of the product. While this happens the music is getting louder.


Studio Canal- The is a small letter box size the camera zooms in on the letter box. In the letter box the camera is tracking forwards through the clouds. The logo for studio canal then fades into the path and the borders close in on the logo and the music gets louder.

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