LES BLEUS DE RAMVILLE

The opening shot of Les Bleus de Ramville constrains the frame, making the eye focus on the hockey player's pre-match preparations. The sense of intimacy and concentration contributes to the mounting tension that characterizes the whole of the opening sequence as the players prepare to go onto the ice and do battle. I would like to intrigue the viewer by constraining the frame in my opening shot.

The use of close ups characterizes the camerawork.  CUs track the sequence of preparations and create authenticity through the detailed scrutiny of equipment, clothes, skates, tactic sheets and so on. The viewer is drawn into the world of ice hockey. I envisage using this technique in order to design an authentic mise-en-scene and create verisimilitude.

Sound and vision editing combine to create the mounting tension. Here, as tape swings, the music is slow but with a heavy relentless beat.George Lucas famously declared
"The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie."

The camera tracks across flyers with the ice hockey team's name printed on them. I plan to use this effective way of giving information visually to the viewer, building the world of the film through props, as I saw the director of Delicatessen do.

Legible title credits that are well placed are important and I intend to plan this in at the very start: how to frame a shot so that titles will be placed where we want then to be. This is legible because it is white on black and because the main prop is off centre.

VFX here make the tactics come alive as game strategy is planned: the noughts and crosses move around the pitch. I could achieve this using iStopMotion, which I have already practised.

The tilt pan in this shot leads up to a CU of the lights, edited together with stunningly powerful sound effects as the camera is held still on the explosive beat of the music. It creates huge drama.

An over the shoulder shot contributes to the rich variety in this opening sequence, one of the qualities that makes it so richly textured. The men marching onto the ice in formation also builds the idea that they are a formidable team of warriors (we do not see their faces) who are out to conquer their rivals.The sound track supports this quality as it continues the strong, dramatic, unrelenting beat.

FILM OPENINGS

Today we watch a selection of Claremont student film openings and critique the work, looking for strengths and weaknesses. The selection included romantic comedy, political thriller and spy thriller. More can be viewed on Claremont's YouTube channel.
Strengths to look out for:

• variety of camera angles including establishing shot, POV shots,  close ups, motivated shots, high angle shots, shots into reflective surfaces (mirrors, windows, shop fronts)
• variety of camera movements such as tracking shots, arc pans, tilt pans, focus pulls
• framing shots through restricted frames, such as through windows, doors, bars, tunnels, binoculars, round street corners
• editing of sound and vision together; appropriate pace; variety of pace
• sound track to signal genre, to build suspense, to draw attention to visuals; spot sounds; dialogue
• clearly audible sound (especially dialogue) best recorded separately
• holding the camera steady by using a tripod
• even lighting (not too dark)
• pace
• credible props and costumes
• title credits that look convincing, are legible, come up sensibly
• film title large enough to signal the film name clearly
• enigma and suspense: is it clear how the film will develop?

Weaknesses occurred when such good practice was neglected. We also noticed some wooden acting, slow narrative development, lack of lip synching and unlikely plot devices.

CHECKLIST

On your blog, there should be the following posts under the dates given. Please use the titles provided.
17.09.14 RESEARCH: NOWHERE BOY A brief account of how the representation of John Lennon is constructed in this opening sequence.
16.09.14 RESEARCH: DISTRIBUTION See class blog on Pride (09.09.14)
17.09.14 RESEARCH: DISTRIBUTION A brief account of the target audience for What We Did On Our Holiday (directed by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin 2014) and how that audience was attracted and addressed ( trailers, website, preview screenings, P & A and so on). See class blog for 9.09.14.
23.09.14 PLANNING: IDENT  Your Production Company ident made using iStopMotion.
26.09.14 PRELIMINARY Your preliminary exercise with an account of the brief. Post an account of your filming and editing along with the completed prelim. State what you think you learned, using 'articulate reflection'. Support your account with screenshots.
30.09.14 RESEARCH: REPRESENTATION An account of what you learned about semiotics from the work of Roland Barthes plus the task 'Choose a photo from a recent film and analyse the representations depicted. For example, what would you say about either of the stills from Pride (2014)?'
3.10.14 RESEARCH: THE ART OF THE TITLE First analysis
4.10.14 RESEARCH: THE ART OF THE TITLE Second analysis
6.10.14 RESEARCH: THE ART OF THE TITLE Third analysis

 

THE ART OF THE TITLE

Essential viewing for students choosing the film opening brief: THE ART OF THE TITLE This excellent site is dedicated to displaying and examining title opening sequences. 


PREP TAKE 3 EXAMPLES (as below) AND COMMENT ON HOW THE OPENING TITLE SEQUENCE FUNCTIONS. This involves close observation of choice of shots, framing, mise-en-scene, colours, font choices, music codes...anything relevant.  
You will later USE THIS GRID OF 9 FRAMES TO PLAN YOUR OWN OPENING TITLE SEQUENCE and post the planning on your blog.
DAYS OF HEAVEN (Terrence Malick, 1978)

Set in 1916 and telling the story of a tragic love triangle, this film evokes both the period and genre in its opening sequence, which reflects Malick's knowledge of photography and willingness to use little studio lighting. 


The film's cinematography by Morricone models itself on silent films, which often used natural light. Malick also drew inspiration from painters such as Johannes Vermeer, Edward Hopper (particularly his House by the Railroad), and Andrew Wyeth, as well as photo-reporters from the turn of the century, such as Alfred Stieglitz, Weegee (Arthur Fellig) and Jacob Riis. The street scenes capture the urban poverty of the period and explain the desperation of the film's protagonists whose future is precarious . 


We have studied Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange as an example of the power of photography as reportage and its use in social change; the close-up of the infant's and young woman's faces exert a strong appeal and tug on our heart strings. The films concerns with social difference and the need for financial security are hinted at by the stills of the girl in the wedding veil and the three young women drinking tea intercut by shots of manual workers of various kinds.


The subject matter gradually moves from the urban to more of the rural, reflecting the narrative trajectory of the film.


The enchanting orchestral music echoes the use of musical accompaniment in silent film to suggest emotion.


Period colors (brown, mahogany and dark wood for the interiors) and period costumes from used fabrics and old clothes to avoid the artificial look of studio-made costumes. The colours create the illusion of period photographs, street journalism: an essential part of creating verisimilitude or 'real life' on screen. As a result, the footage is imbued with the quality of documentary truth, of scientific 'fact' which allows the viewer to engage fully with the world of the film. 


Art of the Title comments: Firing a mix of critical thought and mesmerizing immersion, Dan Perri's title design for Terrence Malick's Days of Heavencombines street level photojournalism and credit-to-character inferences drawing the curious eye at will, the ears aswoon with "Carnival of the Animals - The Aquarium" by Camille Saint-Saens. You are nowhere if not here, with these people, in the Gilded Age of American history.'


'And then the last shot of the opening title sequence] subtlety shifts us from photos and into the world of the film. In a masterful move, the last shot perfectly replicates the same look of the previous images, but...it is one of the actors, Linda Manz (in a photograph taken by Edie Baskin.) It’s through her perspective that we will take this journey so it is fitting that she is the one who bridges the gap from the opening credits into the first shot of the film'. Read the analysis by Cinema Sights

SHERLOCK HOLMES (Guy Ritchie, 2010)

Watery cobblestone logos and longitudinal linotype layer, lace and lash Prologue Films’ opening and end credit work for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. Key visual codes include pen-and-ink line wash drawings that emerge from live action film, handwriting in ink in a flowing Victorian hand complete with ink spatters for authenticity, sepia colour tones and the quality of foggy London pea-soupers that conjure up a shady, dangerous underworld where crime lurks in the shadows.

SE7EN (David Fincher, 1995)

Se7en is a 1995 American thriller film, which also contains horror and neo-noir elements. The now classic opening sequence to Se7en that helped rejuvenate title design in mainstream cinema. The dvd has a long video about the making of this sequence. Title Designer: Kyle Cooper

RESEARCH: THE ART OF THE TITLE

Today I started to research opening title sequences in more detail...

As I am doing the film brief, I started my detailed research into opening credits..
In class I investigated the very useful website The Art of the Title http://www.artofthetitle.com  
Delicatessen (directed by Jeunet and Caro, 1991) 
For my first piece of close analysis, I used my own observations, class discussion and the website's own commentary, including the thoughts of Karin Fong, creative director and designer at Imaginary Forces, whose title work Terminator: Salvation, Boardwalk Empire and Rubicon. I have intentionally included comments on what in particular inspired me and my thoughts on how I might use the inspiration in my own foundation production.

• The genre of this film is black comedy, so the title design is witty, in that it invites the viewer to take pleasure in the way that each credit is embedded in an appropriate visual clue: the director of photography engraved on a camera, the costume designer is embroidered on a clothes label and so on.
• The historical period is clearly established by the period quality of the artefacts: old technology, paper tags, folding wooden ruler and so on.
• Colour and lighting are key visual codes. The sepia tone lends a period air and the colour black predominates, underscoring the grim nature of the subject matter: the objects are all the dusty possessions abandoned by their owners who have been invited in, fattened up and butchered to feed the hungry inhabitants of the commune.
• The camera movement is part of the method: the camera pans in a slow glide over the series of abandoned possessions, stopping over each credit to allow the viewer to scrutinize and take in the cleverness of each device.

REPRESENTATION

Show that you have deconstructed still and moving images in order to show your understanding of representation.

1. Roland Barthes Mythologies (1964): state what you learned about his approach and how you 'read' this image. Check back to the classwork on this.
2. Roland Barthes The Rhetoric of the Image (1977): explain what you understand by 'rhetoric of the image' and deconstruct the Panzani advertisement. You may do further reading to understand this fully, such as this article by Daniel Chandler Semiotics for Beginners.
   YouTube presentation on semiotics here.
3. Choose a photo from a recent film and analyse the representations depicted. For example, what would you say about either of the stills from Pride (2014)?
   
   

iSTOPMOTION

Making a Production Company ident using iStopMotion