Art Of The Title

Opening scenes of drama films

Because we have decided to do a genre of crime drama for our opening scene I decided to research some film openings wth the genre of drama on the website Art of the title.

Forrest Gump 

This film opening is very simple and only includes one shot of the feather floating down to meet Forrest Gump's feet. The titles of the film are not layered in anyway or put in creatively and are more just put on top of the shots. I feel like when we do our opening we will try to include the titles more in the shot. There is a non diegetic music paying softly in the background and this means that the audience can't hear anymore sounds. The opening does not give a lot away that happens in the film and only introduces us too one character.




Goodfellas 


The titles in this opening come on in a swiping motion linking with the sound effects of the opening that reminds me of cars driving past. The opening also includes that it is based on a true story which is what we will need to put in our opening. The scene then cuts to the police car driving on the road and the date of when the even happened. For most part of the opening there is little titles and more dialogue that would be used in the rest of the film. However at the end of the opening the titles go back to how they were at the beginning with this time though there is a song playing. The titles aren't included in particular to the opening except for the fact that they are linked to the sound of cars.



Snatch

The beginning starts off in silence showing only a black screen and the titles, I think for our opening we should include a black screen because two of the openings I have looked at have them to put the titles on. The opening then goes to an extra of dialogue with no titles included. This is until the next shot of a security camera with people inside a lift and music playing in the background. In that shot the titles start reappearing. This opening reminds me of Goodfellas because of the order in which events and the titles happen.

Research On Genette Tate

For our film opening we had to do some research on Genette herself here is some of the websites and information we find out about her. We needed to make sure got the right information to make an accurate representation of what happened on August 19th 1978.                  

Animatic

This is our animatic for our opening scene. I learnt when drawing the pictures for the storyboard how crucial it is too plan for our opening so we know what the shots will be. When making the animatic we learnt editing techniques that would help us when editing our opening for example cutting clips to shorten them and scaling the images to fit to size. Our animatic has no sound however which is a flaw but we didn't feel comfortable enough with the software to do this and we were also pretty slow when making our animatic. That was noticed by the audience when they watched it however the audience did like the short sentences that went with the pictures so it was obvious what was going to happen in that scene.

Storyboard

This is my storyboard for our film opening we have changed some aspects of it so it doesn't directly compare to this. 

Editing

Different types of editing

Continuity 

This is when the audience does not realise that there are different shots and it just continues smoothly and they link with each other which makes it easier for the viewer to watch the sequence.

Montage 

They often use this in television programmes to show what had happened before in the programme as a recap to the audience for example they do this at the beginning of each waterloo road episode.

Transitions 

A transition is the term used when the editor cuts from one shot to another.












Wipe 

This is where one image is replaced with another and it eliminates one shot with another.



Dissolve 

This is where one scene or image gradually moves onto another one and it is a smooth transition.

Simon Hall Talk

Simon Hall is the BBC's crime correspondent in the South West of England and is also the author of the Dan Groves and Adam Breen detective novells.

On the 24th of November Simon Hall came into school to talk to us about media careers and journalism. It was a very interesting talk and was a real eye opener to what journalism entails and how to get into it. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about someone being so interested in their career and it really made me think about what I would like to do in the future and that maybe I would like to do something associated with journalism. The talk was an hour long and he really showed us what it takes to be a journalist and and the positives and negatives of it.

The Use Of Sounds In Films

Types of sound in films.

Diegetic sounds 

This is sound where it is visible on the screen for example

• Voices of characters 
• Sounds made by objects in the film e.g. radio, television and phone
• Music as represented as coming from instruments in the space 

Diegetic sound can be either on screen or off screen.

Non- Diegetic sound

This is where is not visible on the screen or has been implied in the action of the film for example

• narrator's commentary 
• sound effects 
• mood music

It is represented as coming from a source outside of the film.

Sound is actually more important in films than it is given credit for because the audience can listen to many different sounds at once. 

Here are some examples of different types of sound

Dialogue 

This is the sound of characters talking o each other onscreen.

Ambient (natural sound)

An example of this is he room tone. This is the background of the movie set.

Additional Dialogue Recording (ADR)

This is when dialogue is recorded after the film has finished filming. This could be done if something ruined the dialogue during shooting.   

     

Narration

This is when you can hear the voice of a person speaking but they are not seen in the film.   

                                  

Sound effects (SFX)

This is any sound created for the movie.

Score 

This is original music created for the film 

Soundtrack

Music included in the film that wasn't created for he film.

Sound included in films can help a film stand out and be remembered for example the violin scene in psycho when Marion Crane gets stabbed in the shower.

Another classic sound effect is the sound of Darth Vader.