The opening credit is for IFC films. They are famous for films such as The Human Centipede. This means that they already have a reputation that will build excitement for the audience.
The writing is in white lettering on a black screen so that it stands out. The film begins with saying the film is associated with periscope entertainment. This is effective because there is not too many associates before the film begins so the audience won't get bored. The details are between the opening of the film so that there is something for the audience to watch while the information is still getting through to them. Having the titles spread out in this way means that the audience stay interested instead of getting bored throughout the big blocks of information.
The main title sequence is over an X Ray of the human body. This reinforces genre and builds enigma as the audience wonder where death comes into the story.
They credit
ICP Films
Rene Sekula: known for Captain America: The Winter Soldier
David Guy Levy: David is credited twice to draw more attention to his name as he played a big part in the making of the film.
Zak Kilberg
Andre Royo
Morgan Conrad
Ivy Isenberg
Overall I believe that this is a very effective title sequence because there is not too much information distracting the viewers from the story. In my film I want to have my information spread out in the same way so that the audience are not bored by it.
Opening Credits
Panic Room
The title Panic Room suggest that it’s a thriller as a panic
room is used in a time of crisis. Crisis is usually link with thriller films as
they normally start the story with some sort of crisis. The title Panic Room
suggest some sort of safety which entices the viewer to watch the film as they
want to know who owns the panic room and what it will be used for. The size of
the text is quite large buy not over powering so that it doesn’t distract from
the back ground, which is various shots of the city in which the film is set.
The text is silver so it blends in and once again blends in with the back
ground however, it is still strong enough to be noticed. The Columbia Pictures,
Sony pictures, Classic woman holding the torch of light is the first imagine
seen as it’s the main production company of this film. Columbia then has their
own title without Sony. The main actors of this film are all listed as the
opening credits play through. All the credits are placed on shots of the city
which introduces the location of the film. The non-diegetic sound track is a
slow, dramatic orchestral piece that has a creepy effect on the viewer. It
makes the audience feel uncomfortable.
Mad
Max
Mad Max is a simple, easy to remember title. Mad Max simple suggests Max is
mad. We link mad with mentally ill and broken, this can cause some people to
turn into psychopaths and become dangerous. Max is the main character of the
film and people are drawn to the title as it is simple but effective. The title
in the opening scene is a metallic font. Mad on top of the max. This makes it
bold and easy to see, the font is scared and dirt in places to suggest its old
or has been through a trauma to gain the marks, this can be link with the
character Max. Information about the film is given in voice overs, no images
are displayed only a black screen. It simple tells the audience how the world
became as it did. The two main characters of the film, Max and Furiosa, actors
are on the opening credits. Their real names are in a cold sandy coloured font where
as their characters names are in a red font which is scribbled and messy. Most
of the title sequence the tiles are black, however a brief clip of trees
falling in the wind does show. This may be to suggest that the world the live
in now is dark but once held life but now it had fallen away like the trees.
Hanna
The title of this film is simple the name of the main character, this builds a
mystery of who this woman is and what her story is. Her name is an enigma, a
puzzle that is unravelled in the film. In the opening credit of the film there is a sudden cut to
the title which is her name written in bold, capital, letters on a red back
ground. The red suggest dangers as red is associated with danger and death.
This is a give away clue that the film is a thriller. The first writing we see
on screen is the production company, Focus Features presents, A Joe Wright
film. The titles are white on a snowy back round. This is done so that the
credits look hidden but can still be seen, their hiding just like the character
is in the opening scene. The sounds that can be heard are all diegetic, no
sound track is being played over the top. This is to create the feeling of the
natural environment. We can hear the wind whipping up the snow, various animals
in the distance, Hanna breathing and her foot crunching on the snow.
Before the film begins it credits relativity media. This is effective because they have helped make successful films such s 21 and Over. This means that fans of their other work would want to watch Limitless to watch more. It also means that audiences would assume that this film would be good because they are successful and would also make this film successful. This is credited twice to further the influence it has.
It then credits Virgin Produced, this is effective because Virgin is already a really well known name in many areas as they have worked on all kinds of things. As a result of this audiences know that Virgin would probably make this successful also. They have also worked on 21 and Over and then are also credited with That Awkward Moment. This means that fans of these films would want to see more of their work. Audiences would assume that since this company have made other good films this film would be equally good and would therefore be excited about the film. This was also credited twice to further its influence.
Other Credits
Rogue Productions: They have worked on many adverts as well as this film so the audience would see them as a well rounded company and get excited for what they would do on this film.
Neil Burger: known from Divergent which is a highly successful film. This means that it has many fans that would want to know what else he can do. This means that him being in this film would generate excitement from audiences.
Bradley Cooper: known from the Hangover and The A Team. Bradley Cooper has appeared in many amazing films. This means that he is very well known and probably has a large fan base. This means that his appearance in this film would generate a lot of excitement and make many people want to see it.
Abbie Cornish: known from sucker punch. Abbie Cornish has also been in many successful films meaning that she would also have a large following that would be excited to watch her work.
Robert De Niro: known from classic thriller films. He is a legendary actor meaning that many people love his work and want to see more of it. Fans of the genre would already know him very well from his previous work meaning that they would be very excited to see he's in this film. He has also done a lot of work in other genres that are very popular such as Meet The Parents, this means that even people who aren't big thrillers would know his name and be excited to watch the film because of it.
Intermedia film: known for their successful film terminator, this company is very recognizable and have a following that would be incredibly excited to see more from them. This means that many people would be excited to watch this film after seeing their name.
Many Rivers/Boy of The Year
In this the title is on screen for 7 seconds. This is effective as it means that the audience has a very long time to take it in and remember it. The writing is super imposed over a moving background of the city that the film is set in. The writing is very light colored so that it will stand out against the dark background and catch the viewers attention. The movement of both the camera and the title make the sequence very disorienting to put the viewers in a state of confusion, through this the film seems fast paced and thrilling from the very beginning. The title sequence takes up a lot of time as it is 1:21 minutes long. The business of the background adds to the fast pace. The camera furthers this by moving quickly through the scene. The way that the camera moves seamlessly through the environment reinforces that the main character in the film is in fact "limitless" and builds excitement to the audience.
The opening titles include many names of people associated with the film. I find this very ineffective as it takes up a lot of time and therefore makes the audience lose interest.The non diegetic music begins very simply and crescendos to a very busy piece. This is effective as it builds excitement.
When the background moves from a busy city to a brain the audience are reminded that the character is limitless as the camera seems to move through the brain endlessly, the constant reminder of the title builds excitement as the audience wonder what a limitless human being is capable of.
The sequence ends with a blank white screen. I find this very effective as it makes the writing a lot more easy to focus on meaning that the audience is going to take more notice of it.
Overall I believe that although the fast movements and disorienting features in this opening work well I won't use it for my film as my film is not supposed to be as confusing and disorienting as Limitless is. I also won't make my sequence too long as viewers would find it boring when they just want to watch the film. On the other hand I think that the long duration of the title is good because it makes it more memorable, I also think it's effective that they had the title moving as it draws more focus so I will try to include some form of movement.
For our production name we wanted something short and memorable.We choose to use the first letter of both of our names. F and B. This makes it short and easy to remember. We choose to keep the design simple and fancy to show we care about quality. Using this type of font makes us look professional compared to using a basic box type or comic sans. The FB are larger to draw attention to our production company as we want it to be recognized and easy noticed. The smaller production underneath the FB is to show that we are a production company.
This draft design will be the template for the finished product for the logo. I plan on making the logo on Photoshop so that we can manipulate the design as we go in case we need to change it. Creating the logo on Photoshop will also allow us to easily place it into the title sequence of our opening for the thriller we have created.
We started by labelling all the shots and putting them in order.
For this film we did more editing than we did for our prelim. One of the things we are confused about it how to edit a flashback so that it doesn't just look like a sudden change of location. We started by using a soft focus lighting to try and hint to the audience that it is a flashback but it wasn't entirely effective.
To figure out the best way to do this I analysed the Butterfly Effect to see if it gave me any ideas as to how to portray a flashback in a thriller film.
From 0:00-1:16 you can see how the first flashback is done. It makes the scene very shaky before cutting to the past. I don't think this method would help with my film as we are trying to make the flashback scene a dreamlike escape from the rest of it and the shaking is too violent to maintain the soft feel we are going for.
In this you see me and Briony discussing our plans as to how we are going to do our flashback. Briony decided that we should use a cut to black each side of the flashback to signal that we are going into a jump in time. I then had the idea to use a fade transition each side of the flashback to give it the dreamlike feel that we are going for. This would also contrast with the harsh cuts back into the present time. We decided to remove the dialogue in this scene and instead have happy music and background voices to portray the dreamlike state we are trying to create.
