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Title Timeline

As a group, we decided to create a detailed timeline of the visual parts of the title sequence for the film Goodfellas, Se7en, The Dark Knight and Pulp Fiction as well as a description of the audio which matched up with the visuals.

Goodfella's

Se7en 



The Dark Knight

Pulp Fiction

From this evidence, I can see that the titles on all the crime title sequences are very quick with about five seconds between each but they all give enough time for the audience to read and look at. They also all have very little storyline, with very little to no dialogue.

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Group Meeting

As a group, we held a meeting with our target audience to generate a believable idea of which we could base our project on. We logged the conversation and said which comment belonged to which group member and it became obvious that each member equally contributed in this process. This is the concept of our group meeting:





The conclusion we made from this conversation was that the main character, acted by James, will be shown running in various locations. He could possibly be hearing voices and having hallucinations of his dead daughter to portray his schizophrenic mental disorder. As the main character is running, there will be posters and signs that would be seen in such a location with the credits displayed. At the end of the title sequence, the main character is shown holding a gun to his head. At this moment, the screen blacks  and we hear a gun shot with the title appearing on a black screen.

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Opening Title Sequences

Evaluations of famous titles sequences

Juno
Strengths	Weaknesses
Gives an introduction to the character and the start of the story	The use of the cartoon style picture in the opening sequence doesn’t link in with the rest of the film.
The font of the titles matches the genre of this opening sequence.	Not sure what the film is trying to promote
Music is catchy and appealing to the audience and genre	Title Sequence could be interpreted as far too long
The switch between the comic strip and the real picture is seen to be effective
The way the titles have been put on objects

Casino Royale
Strengths	Weaknesses
Fast paced but with enough time for the audience to read the credits	Un-engaging, slow and without any kind of drama
From the images and actions throughout the film the audience know what to expect in the rest of the film.	There’s no mystery, no ominous feel, no ‘darkness’
Music relates to the theme of the title sequence, death and violence.
Use of images that relate to the title of the film, Casino- use of card suits

Dawn of the Dead
Strengths	Weaknesses
Effective in establishing the story	Very fast paced, not much time to establish what is happening in the story
Connections between the religion, the attacks, and the gore in the opening and its context in the film
The editing is very quick, with very graphic images between each shot, fitting in with the genre, and using one of the conventions of this genre, the blood.

Evaluations of students titles sequences

Mortifer
Strengths	Weaknesses
Leaves you in suspense, as an audience we are not sure why the main character is carrying around a gun	This title sequence tells you a lot of the film just in the opening sequence doesn’t give you much to get excited about in the rest of the film
The fact that it is shot in black and white gives it a sense of mystery and a not so happy feel if it was shot in colour	The setting almost doesn’t seem appropriate for the type of storyline set
The fact that the text is in contrast to the background tells the reader that the film will not be a very cheerful film

The Saint Valentine’s day massacre
Strengths	Weaknesses
The special effects used after the shooting gave it a really good realistic after effect	It seems more like a short film than an opening to a feature film.
Great camera angles and colour/lighting/sound effects and storyline	Drags on a bit, examples being with showing him walking for ages and the sign of the school shows for way too long
	The music was a bit unrelated I think to the story, it seemed a bit too cheerful

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 Research into opening sequences

Watching the Kyle Cooper Interview:
After watching the two clips on a professional and his views and tips on a good title sequence, I now realise how important a title sequence is and how just the title sequence sets an expectation for the rest of the film.

When watching the two clips from Kyle Cooper, I have now realised that a lot of important work has to be put into the title sequence to keep the audience watching the rest of the film. When creating a title sequence, the tips Kyle gave us were that the font must relate to the plot of the movie. He also said how important the small details are and that effects can be created so easily and simply, an example Kyle used was dropping the ink into water. Music is also important when creating a title sequence because the choice of music can set the mood of the scene and help the audience to guess what is coming in the rest of the film. Kyle Cooper also experimented with different ideas and encouraged others to do the same because some work and fit better than others. A title sequence should also make a good impression and take into consideration the background shot.

After watching this interview from Kyle Cooper, i can see that to make a title sequence successful as a group we need to make she we connect with our audience through audio and visual filming, and making sure all the little details are related to the plot and genre of my film.

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Most Popular Film Genres

United Kingdom Box Office Returns
From this graph we can see that the most popular movie genres over 2009 was the comedy genre, shortly followed by action and adventure film genres. This information will help our group to decide the genre for our title sequence. Using this our groups initial idea was to do a comedy as this was the most popular genre however we felt that trying to make the audience laugh could be risky and a hard task to do and therefore decided we were going to go for the second most popular genre which was an action film which as a group we found a lot of ideas that would stick to the conventions of this genre. 

 

For the weekend starting 31 December 2010

Film Title	Genre(s)	Source
Gulliver’s Travels	·         Adventure ·        Comedy  ·        Fantasy	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320261/
Little Fockers	·        Comedy	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0970866/
Love and Other Drugs	·        Comedy ·        Romance	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0758752/
The Way Back	·        Drama	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1023114/
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader	·        Adventure  ·         Family ·        Fantasy	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0980970/
TRON: Legacy	·        Action ·        Adventure ·        Sci-Fi	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1104001/
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1	·         Adventure  ·        Fantasy  ·         Mystery	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0926084/
Megamind	·         Animation  ·        Action  ·         Comedy	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1001526/
The Tourist	·         Action ·        Drama  ·        Thriller	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1243957/
Animals United	·        Animation ·         Family	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1620449/

From looking at the data of the most recent films we can see that the most popular genre is Adventure and Comedy.

Top 10 rated moves of all time by imbd users

Film Title	Genre(s)	Source
The Shawshank Redemption	·        Crime ·        Drama	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161/
The Godfather	·        Crime ·        Drama	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068646/
The Godfather Part II	·        Crime ·        Drama	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071562/
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly	·        Adventure ·        Western	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060196/
Pulp Fiction	·        Crime ·        Drama	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110912/
Inception	·        Action  ·        Crime  ·        Mystery	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/
Schindler’s List	·        Biography ·        Drama ·        History	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108052/
12 Angry Men	·        Drama ·        Mystery	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050083/
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest	·        Drama	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073486/
The Dark Knight	·        Crime ·        Drama ·        Thriller	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/

From looking at the data of the top 10 films rated by imdb users I can see that the most popular film genre is Drama, with the second popular film genre being Crime.

Top 10 highest Income films

Film	Genre(s)	Sources
Avatar	·        Action ·        Adventure ·        Fantasy	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/
Titanic	·        Drama  ·        History  ·        Romance	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	·        Action ·        Adventure ·        Fantasy	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167260/
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest	·        Action  ·         Adventure ·        Fantasy	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0383574/
Toy Story 3	·        Animation ·        Adventure ·        Comedy	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435761/
Alice in Wonderland	·        Adventure ·        Family ·        Fantasy	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1014759/
The Dark Knight	·        Crime ·        Drama ·        Thriller	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone	·        Adventure ·        Family ·        Fantasy	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0241527/
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End	·        Action ·        Adventure ·        Fantasy	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449088/
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix	·        Adventure ·        Family  ·         Fantasy	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373889/

After evaluating the top ten all time films the two most popular genres are adventure and fantasy.

Here is a questionnare we produced as a group to find out the most popular genre of film. After giving out 17 questionnares the results I recieved back in were varied. Out of the 17 questionnares given out 8 of them were in the 11-20 age range, this age range's most popular film genre was either a comedy or a musical, the majority of these people enjoyed this genre because they have interesting storylines that they can relate too. This age range generally like a happy storyline that will keep the audience captivated. This audience have said that a title sequence should include a start to story which will interest them and make them watch more, it should include an introduction of the characters and a guess hint of what to expect. This age ranges least favourite film genre is war and sci-fi and attend the cinema once a month or rarely and would all go with friends. When asking which film appeals which is currently being shown in the cinema all answers were different and there was no real correlation in results. Finally when asked what film genre they would like to see more of, most genres were answered and the only genre that had not been ticked was action showing that this was the most performed film genre.

The next age range is 21-40, the most popular genre of film in this category is a comedy, generally because it cheers them up and makes the audience laugh, they expect this genre to be funny and keep them laughing all the way through. They expect the title sequence to introduce the film to the audience whilst showing the names of the people incorporated in the film. The least favourite film genre overall is horror and this audience tend to go to the cinema once a month with friends. Again when asking which film appeals which is currently being shown in the cinema all answers were different and there was no real correlation in results. This genre generally wanted to see more comedy films.

The next age range asked is 41+, this category were split on their favourite genre between comedy and musicals, they like these films because they are cheerful, with no violence and a good entertainment value. This audience generally expect this genre to do what it says in the genre title, for example this audience want a comedy in a comedy film or a romance in a romantic film. This age range expect the title sequence to have an introduction to the story and characters with a hook to get the audience into the film. Overall this age ranges least favourite film genre is thriller and they attend the cinema rarely with a couple of applicants who never attend the cinema, this age range who actually attend the cinema usually go with their family and when asked what film appeals to you that is currently being shown in the cinema various answers were given back. The film genre this age range decided they would like to see more of the majority of answers came back as musicals.

After asking people to fill in the questionnare made as a group and evaluating the results i found a lot of mistakes made. One of these was the age boxes available as from the results given back I found that no-one in the 5-10 age range had filled in this questionnare, the reason for this is because this age range were simply not old enough and would need a lot of help when answering the majority of the questions on the sheet. Another problem that we similarly had with age ranges was the 40+ category this was because 40 year olds and around the 60 year old range have a very different taste's in genres of film. Another problem we had with the questionnare was the fact that there was no clear instructions of what they had to complete, for example on question number 1, what is your favourite film genre? there is no real clue as to whether this person has to tick 1,2 or 3 boxes and as they get to the second question; What do you expect from this genre? they find that if they have ticked nearly all the boxes they will need to explain why they enjoy a large amount of the genres. Also when asked what they expect from the genre, some of the people answering found it hard to complete because they just expected what it said in the name, for example a comedy or a romance. I also found that not many people knew what a title sequence was, and got this term mixed up with the credits at the end of the film. I also found that when asking what the least favourite film genre was we never asked the reason for this. I felt that when asking question 6 how often do you attend the cinema and one of the options was never this was contradicting the next question, who would you attend the cinema with because some of the public who never attend the cinema would not be able to answer who they would go with. When looking at question 7, I similarly felt that we should of added another box with boyfriend/girlfriend because this answer commonly came up but the public were unable to put this answer down. I felt that the errors made were generally down to the fact that as a group we didn't look back over the questionnare before giving it out meaning small errors were made unnecessarily. 

Once we have decided the age range in which we want to target our film at, we will then use this information and as a group what genre we feel will be most successful to decide which genre we want to do, to gain the audiences interest. The age our group has decided to aim our title sequence at is the 15-21 age range because they are closest to our groups age ranges so it will be easierto relate to our target audience. This means the genre we want our title sequence to be is crime because we felt this genre links to not only the male gender but also the female gender and also from looking at the results from the questionnare this is one of the genres our age group would like to see more of.