Analysing two film openings from my chosen genre

The Opening Titles for the film The Usual Suspects (1995) gives the audience no indication really for what is to come up in the film because this opening title sequence is very vague and wants the audience to think about whats to come.

Genre: From watching the opening titles of the film, I couldn't really work out the genre of the film, but I thought it was a Crime, Mystery and Psychological Thriller. The reason why I thought it was a psychological thriller is mainly because of the dark colour scheme really because it was mysterious, the black colours added effect and as well as that the music makes it seem like something kind of psychological is going on as well. The reason why I thought there could be Crime in there is because of the front cover of the film as it has a few men in a police station standing up against a backboard with numbers to show their height in front of a camera. And finally the reason why I thought there could be Mystery in there is because of the titles at the beginning it doesn't give anything away so it wants you to think about the film.

Narrative: The narrative wasn't that easy to work out really because there wasn't anything shown in the opening titles, I think that it will be about a few men that get caught by the police or something like that by looking at the cover of the film as well.

Characters: In the sense of characters in this opening titles sequence, I could see that there would be a man as the main actor in this film because he is featured in the opening. I could see from the titles that there were a few actors names I knew in there such as Kevin Spacey and Stephen Baldwin, they seemed like the main actors as well as Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Pollack, Chazz Palmintiri and Pete Postlethwaite because they all came up on the screen together as titles.

Atmosphere: The atmosphere within these opening titles is predominately mysterious although at some points it does make you feel on edge as it is a very weird but plain opening sequence.

Setting: From watching the opening titles sequence, I couldn't tell where the film is set to be honest as it doesn't really give it away, it could perhaps be set in a police station in New York or something just by the way the front cover of the film looks.

Sound: The non-diegetic music over the top of the opening titles makes it seem even more creepy and mysterious as it is just simple mysterious sounds but keeps you on edge.

Titles: The titles in the opening titles sequence are silvery and black this is the effect I think the producer was going for because I feel that he want's to set the scene for the film but not give too much away.





The Opening Titles for the film Identity (2003) gives the audience some indication of what is to come up in the film because this opening title sequence shows a little bit about the story I feel as it has a picture of the actor next to their names on the titles and these opening titles give away its setting. These opening titles are very short though at about 30 seconds.

Genre: From watching the opening titles of the film, I could work out the genre of the film because unlike the other one I feel that this one want's you to know the genre of the film before you start to watch it and I think it is a Horror and Psychological Thriller. The reason why I thought it was a psychological thriller is mainly because of the colour scheme and there could have been a hint of crime in there because of the detective stuff going on but it seemed more like a psychological thriller to me. And the reason why I thought there could be Horror in there is because of the front cover as it has generic conventions of a horror such as blood and someone screaming.

Narrative: The narrative wasn't that easy to work out really because there wasn't really much shown about the film except from the location, I think that it could be something about police again and the characters have done something wrong and there being tracked down hence the name "Identity" for the film.

Characters: In the sense of characters in this opening titles sequence, I could see that there would be three men and two women as the main actors and actresses. The males are called Aidan Gillan, Elyes Gabel and Shaun Parkes and the women are called Keeley Hawes and Holly Aird.

Atmosphere: The atmosphere within these opening titles is predominately mysterious as well because they also make you feel on edge and you want to know what is going to happen next and it is a very good opening sequence.

Setting: From watching the opening titles sequence, I could tell where the film is set because of the establishing shot at the beginning and it is in London as you can see Canary Wharf and the river Thames.

Sound: I wanted to do this opening sequence as I felt it was a really good one for the genre but with this clip I got from YouTube there is no sound on it and there were no other opening titles of this on there so I had to use this one.

Titles: The titles in the opening titles sequence are pretty plain really but the font sort of makes it fit the genre, this is the effect I think the producer was going for because I feel that he want's to set the scene for the film but not give too much away again.

My ideas for institutional logo

These are my drawn ideas for the Narwhal Studios logo, for the first one I thought that it would be good if the Narwhal was animated and jumped over the doughnut looking circle and stars follow it from behind as Narwhals are meant to be magical and the other idea was once again the Narwhal jumping over a doughnut looking circle and the Narwhal jumps out of the water leaving a splash and then splashes into the other side that has water because Narwhals are whales and they live in the water.

This is my other idea for the Narwhal studios logo, this one has been done on the computer, it is a Narwhal that is saying our production studios name "Narwhal Studios". I wanted to make a computer design as you can see the colour and I wanted the Narwhal to look good and see a virtual representation of it as I am not very good at drawing.

Research into a film like ours and how we will attract audiences

These are the opening credits for Shutter Island, it is a psychological thriller and I am looking at this because we can take some good ideas from these opening credits and perhaps use them in our opening for our psychological thriller. In this opening I like that the music in the background is so dramatic and it gives a really good effect and makes you feel more involved in the opening.

The way we would attract the audience, as we are a mainstream company, would be through trailers on the internet and on TV, using synergy, cross media convergence, through advertisements, printing and audience research.

In Theaters

Trailers are a main way of film promotion, because they are delivered directly to movie-goers. (internet as well) They screen in theatres before movie showings. Generally they tell the story of the movie in a highly condensed fashion compressing maximum appeal into two and half minutes.

Film posters

Slideshows - stills, trivia, and trivia games from the film, shown between movie showtimes.

Standees (freestanding paperboard life-size image of figures from the film)

Cardboard 3D displays

Television and Radio

Hollywood movie distributors spend about $4 billion a year to buy paid advertising (30-second TV commercials, newspaper ads, etc.) and over half that total is placed on broadcast and cable TV, which are the main vehicles for advertising movies to audiences. TV is effective because it is an audio-visual medium – like film – and can deliver a vast audience quickly, which is crucial because films typically don’t linger in theaters more than 4–6 weeks, according to Marketing to Moviegoers: Second Edition.

Product placement: paid active or passive insertion (as on-set posters, and action figures) of film brand in drama or sitcom shows, or as passing mentions in dialogue.

Extended placement: full episodes of television talkshows , entertainment news programs, or network news programs, devoted to compensated exposure of the film, stars, clips, director, etc.

In addition, interviews with actors and directors which are filmed en masse at a hotel with local and national entertainment reporters which are featured on local news shows, programs on cable networks, and series such as Byron Allen's series of entertainment series like Entertainment Studios.

Production and paid broadcast of behind-the-scenes documentary-style shows.

Advance trailers, longer previews, or behind-the-scenes footage on rental videos and DVDs

Print

Paid advertisement in newspapers, magazines, and inserts in books

Comic special editions or special episodes

Merchandising

Paid co-branding, or co-advertising (for example Aston Martin in James Bond films) of a product with the film

Promotional giveaways: branded drink cups, toys, or food combinations at fast food chains

Audience Research

There are seven distinct types of research conducted by film distributors in connection with domestic theatrical releases.

When audience research is conducted for domestic release, it involves these areas:

Positioning studies versus other films that will premiere at the same time.

Test screenings of finished or nearly finished films; this is the most well known.

Testing of audience response to advertising materials.

Tracking surveys of audience awareness of a film starting six weeks before premiere.

Exit surveys questioning film goers about their demographic makeup and effectiveness of marketing.

Concept testing that would occur in development phase of a film before it is produced.

Audience research is a strong factor in determining the ability of a film to sell in theaters, which is ultimately how films make their money. As part of a movie's Marketing strategy, audience research comes into account as producers create promotional materials. These promotional materials consistently change and evolve as a direct consequence of audience research up until the film opens in theaters.

Jelly Baby Activity

This is the Jelly Baby Activity that my classmates did in class. I and a few other people were unfortunately not there at this time because we had a business trip to go on but Dan, who is in my group for our opening titles, let me use his groups pictures when they did the activity. I think this activity is meant to show where the titles come in on an opening so that they/we can learn that and apply the titles in the right order into our opening title sequence when we make it.

Momento film remake

This is my groups (Narwhal Studios') remake of the film Momento. We tried to make this remake as close to the real product to get a good idea of how we are going to make our own remake, we tried to make sure we got the same font for the titles and that the titles were in the same place as they are in the real product. This was to show that we can properly remake an opening titles sequence from a real product and apply our knowledge from making this into our real product. We decided to choose Momento because it would coincide with the idea that we have for our real product, this way we can then compare our product (once made) to this and see whether it has all of the elements that a psychological thriller has.