Credits and Titles: True Blood and Misfits

I have analysed to title sequences from two television programmes and how they reflect the genre of the show. Titles are shown in both of the shows in a certain order, and often only feature the most important members of the crew.

          True Blood:

• The True Blood titles start with the names of the stars.
• The titles appear on a different part of the screen as a different name comes up.
• The titles look handwritten, they are not orderly or conventional, which indicates the horror genre of the programme. 
• The titles are shown in the order of: Casting, Music, Editing, Production Design, Photography, Producer, Production Company and the Creator.
• The titles are surrounded by people acting spontaneously and suspiciously, which is parallel to the title and the programme, such as a very unique church pastor and a decomposing dead fox.
• The titles are white: which symbolise purity and innocence.
• The "True Blood" sign wiggles and flashes on a red, blood like looking background without footage or action. 
• The entire sequence in one and a half minutes.

          Misfits:

• Like True Blood it has it's own title sequence. 
• There is use of both black and white writing which is in the form of graffiti, links to the grimy setting of the show and title sequence.
• Letters of the title a jumbled up before they become clearer, this suggests the characters involved in the show, who are "MisFits". The titles look as it they have been written on paper, or scirbbled down quickly, as if there is no thought or perfection behind them, like those involved in the story.
• Most of the title sequence is in black and white and so are the titles.
• The names of the stars appear before anything else. 
• There is action behind the titles, like in True Blood, however the name of the show is on it's own background with no action with what looks like a grey wall behind it. The font stands out: it is very bold black writing.
• The entire sequence lasts around the same as the True Blood one.

     

It is important that title sequences and credits fit the genre of the programme or film. This research has enabled me to understand that for my own opening sequence it is important to create credits which fit the mood and setting of my opening sequence.

Sound: Speed

The sound from Speed, another thriller is to set a certain atmosphere and mood. The beginning starts with 20th Century Fox sequence, showcasing the institution behind the film. 
The start of the opening begins with the sound of a lift, which could be diegetic. The eery orchestral music featured us non-diegetic to create a tense atmosphere amongst the audience. This sound is parallel to the visual shown. The "Speed" title, as it quickly exits the screen, and with it is matching sound. The pace of the music gets quicker, and builds tension for the audience however as it slows down the mood becomes suspicious. There is no speech throughout the opening, with the only character to appear opening a door, with the sound being diegetic. 

Sound: A Mother's Son

I have analysed sound from the television programme opening of AMother's Son. This thriller programme aims through the sound is to set the mood and scene of what the programme is going to be like.
The sound of nature features heavily in this opening sequence, indicating that nature may have some significance to the plot. The first sound heard is the crashing of violent waves against the shore, and the sound of the grass rattling. This builds tension and suspicion among st the audience, as to why these sound are so powerful. Whilst the sound of the sea may be diegetic, the sound of the grass is most probably non-diegetic. Another non-diegetic sound in the opening sequence is the orchestral soundtrack, which heavily features violins. Such music is often used when mourning someones death, however this music is leading to the build up to this, so the pace of the music is faster, and more frantic. The only speech, which is diegetic, is the female saying "I'm sorry," however you can often hear her heavy breathing which adds to the tense mood of the opening sequence.

Coming from a thriller opening this has made me understand the importance of the soundtrack to build up tension and suspense when creating an opening sequence, as the sound is a vital part of creating a tense atmosphere.

Research into Similar Media Texts

This opening sequence comes from the film "Children of Men". 

• The Universal Studios sequence appears at the beginning of the film, Universal studios are both producers and distributors so we understand what institutions are involved in the making of this film.
• There is a black screen for the titles: however the sound we hear, is the news, presumably which is non-diegetic.
• The opening shot is a medium shot, taken from over head, of a group of ordinary people in a coffee shop- we are given no introduction the main character at first. However there is a close up shot of a male in the coffee shop, which indicates he is the protagonist. 
• Mise-en-scene: is ordinary clothing. This indicates those involved in the film are "ordinary people". It could also indicate the genre: it eliminates fantasy, fairy tale (which usually uses cartoon characters) etc...
• The tracking of the male from the coffee shop to outside allows a panning shot of a bleak London, which we know through the red bus, and the title along the bottom telling the audience of the location. There is also indication that this is set in the future, with moving bus advertisements.
• The music in the opening sequence is quite orchestral and reflective, gives a sense of something tragic.
• The music, lighting, and the narrative indicate the mood of the film, which is mourning and tense. 
• The lighting in the entire opening sequence is very dim and full of greys, blacks and white, there is a lot of pollution on the street which makes the setting look very unpleasant and boring.
• Characterisation: the main character seems to be very serious, middle aged white male. Males usually dominate thrillers. 
• Narrative: the narrative of Children of Men seems very easy to follow, there has been a killing of the youngest human on the planet. This adds a sense of enigma to the plot, as to why someone who is an adult is the youngest person on the planet. 
• Representation: Children of Men is very generic of thrillers, using a white male as it's main protagonist. Females do no feature heavily, apart from the fact that they may be portrayed as being more emotional, with more of them crying than males. 
• As there is a bomb explosion there is a piercing sound of what sounds like a female screaming. The camera's sudden movements indicates the intense and frantic situation of those involved. There is then a silence before the black screen with the title of the film, "Children of Men". The titles in this film do not move, and are black, plain writing.

The Day Coombe Got Robbed

Hello fellow blogger brethren,

12C6 and the rest of Coombe's media students received the unfortunate news of finding out that someone committed the felony of robbery in school over the weekend and stole our finished opening sequence with it. They stole all of the macs and all of the cameras but left our headphones. Unfortunately we don't have any computers to plug them in to. This has left us all shocked and frustrated at the thought of having to re edit our whole opening sequence all over again but thankfully we found that our title sequence was saved on to the public school drive so we don't have to re edit that again. Hopefully my next blog post will show the progress we have made on re editing, in the mean time you can check out the behind the scenes footage we took.

Showcase Feedback

Yesterday we evaluated the current progress of our peers, and they evaluated our video so far. I found their feedback informative because we now know what we need to work on. Here is the feedback.

Our Behind the Scenes Video

We have finally finished our Behind the Scenes video!

Group Discussions: 07/02/13

Today in our lesson we gave audience feedback to our peers on their opening sequences. This allowed us to evaluate the work of others, but also helped me see how we could improve on our own because some of the editing, shots and narrative were very clever.
We also gained some very informative feedback from our peers who pointed out some valuable advice on how to make our opening sequence even better, this included lighting and match on action.

Editing 07/02/13

In today's lesson we finished editing our behind the scenes footage. This helped me to experiment with Final Cut further, and we showed it to many people in the classroom who liked what we had done. The behind the scenes footage altogether is around 3 minutes long, we also took some photos in class which I included at the end. Overall, I think the video is humerus and vibrant, which is quite the opposite to the tension and suspense we have tried to create in our actual opening sequence, however we had fun filming our piece and editing it. 

Group Discussions: 04/02/13

In the lesson today, Kiah, Laura and myself made progress in our behind the scenes footage, and applied a soundtrack to it. We decided to use something upbeat and vibrant, and after much searching decided to use Azealia Banks - 212. In our next lesson we will hopefully 
begin to work on our soundtrack for our actual opening sequence. 

Initial Planning: Shooting Schedule

In order to structure our filming day to make it most time efficient, we planned the order which we would take our shots. During our filming day we generally stuck to this, however after we adapted some scenes, and the end of the opening sequence had an alternative ending, the order some shots were taken in changed. During the day we filmed in the house first, and then in the car (due to 1) Nikolai being a little late and 2) It was quite cold outside!), which meant time was not being consumed unnecessarily. I have included the original shooting schedule here:

Initial Planning: Script and Synopsis

During the initial planning of our opening sequence it was recommended that we included minimal speaking during it. As there were only two characters, we only planned for there to be one sentence of dialogue which occurred at the end. However, as the opening sequence changed, on the day we decided there to be no speaking at all. Here I have included both photos of our planned script, and the synopsis.

Initial Planning: Risk Assessment

Whilst initially planning the filming, we conducted a risk assessment to ensure that we understood some of the risks which may take place whilst shooting. Here is the risks we listed that may occur:

1)	Be careful to not burn our hands whilst using the cameras as they may get hot quickly.
2)	Do not drop the camera.
3)	Do not eat or drink near any of the equipment.
4)	Be careful to not trip up over the wires.

Editing 01/02/13

In the lesson today, we carried on editing our opening sequence, however at times we have found it slightly tricky to match up some of the sound with the footage on Final Cut. We have now put the CCTV camera effect on both clips it needed to be on, and are now in the process of trying to perfect each shot to make the entire film look as professional as possible.
Today we also began to edit our 'behind the scenes' footage, which will also be put onto the group blog. Today I experimented with the text to put on some of the shots, and we will hopefully finish editing this sequence in the next couple of lessons.