Opening Title sequence: Memento

Memento:


Titles in order of appearance:

-A film by Christopher Nolan
-Guy Pearce
-Carrie-Anne Moss
-Memento

This opening sequence is kept short and uses interesting shots to capture aspects of the film to come.  From the beginning of this sequence, we can see that the titles have been made to materialise into the shot as a way of representing memory fading back. A keys plot point of this film is the polaroid camera that the main character uses to leave mementos to himself. with this in mind, as each actors name comes into focus an image of them fades on the card like a memory fades into your mind with a random point in the film of that character playing in the background. This is used to represent random memories fading in and we as the audience do not understand the context of these moments in the same way that the character doesn't either. A plain black background is used to simulate an empty void in the characters mind with only some events coming into focus. The titles are revealed slowly with slow music that builds up to give us the title, much like how the film builds up to a big, climactic moment.

Opening,Title Sequence: Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs:


Titles in order of appearance:

-A film by Quentin Tarantino
-Harvey Keitel
-Micheal Madsen
-Chris penn
-Steve Buscemi
-Lawrence Tierney
-Eddie Bunker
-Quentin Tarantino
-And Tim Roth
-Are
-RESERVOIR DOGS (climbs into frame)
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Supporting cast and crew:(climb into frame)
-Randy Brooks/Kirk Balts/Rich Turner/and the voice of Steven Wright
-Casting: Ronnie Yeskel, C.S.A
-Music supervisor: Karyn Rachtman
-Costume designer: Betsy Heimann
-Editor: Sally Menke
-Production Designer; David Wasco
-DOP: Andrzej Sekula
-Co-producer: Harvey Keitel
-Executive Producers: Richard N.Gladstein, Ronna B.Wallace,and Monte Hellman
-Produced by: Lawrence Bender

This sequence of titles is done in a very quick and stylish way. We begin to transition from the opening scene throughout the sound of a radio broadcaster. The iconic Little Green Bag song begins to play as the main characters are all captured in slow-motion walking down a street with 'A film by Quentin Tarantino' appearing. This sequence is very famous and it wastes no time as the camera cuts to quick  close ups, highlighting the individual main characters with the actors names appearing underneath. Once the shot is finished, the title appears slides up onto the screen. The screen then goes black as supporting crew members begin to slide up onto the screen. all of this is kept in time with the music and all of the titles are kept in a bold yellow font. This continues until the song ends with the producers name appearing onscreen and then we are transitioned much later into the action of the plot.

Opening, title sequences S7ven

S7ven:



Titles in order of appearance:

-New Line Cinema (production company)
-An Arnold Kopelson production
-A film by David Fincher
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Main characters
-Bradd pitt
-Morgan Freeman
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-S7ven (title)
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Supporting actors and lesser known film crew
-Gwyneth Paltrow
-Richard Roundtree
-R.Lee Ermey
-John.C McGinley
-Julie Araskog/Mark Boone Junior
-John Cassini/Reginald E.Cathey/Peter Crombie
-Hawthorne James/Micheal Massee/Leland Orser
-Richard Partnow/Richard Schiff/Pamala Tyson
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Casting by
-Billy Hopkins/Suzanne Smith/Kerry Borden
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Music By
-Howard Shore
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Costumes Designed by
-Micheal Kaplan
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Edited By
-Richard Francis-Bruce
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Production Designed by
-Arthur Max
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DOP
-Darius Khondji
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Co-Producers
-Stephen Brown/Nana Greenwald/Sanford Panilch
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Co-Execuitive Producers
-Lynn Harris/Richard Saperstein
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Execuitive Producers
-Gianni Nunnari/Dan Kolsrud/Arine Kopelsun
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Written By
-Andrew Kevin Walker
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Produced By
-Arnold Kopelson/Phyllis Carlyle
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DIRECTED BY DAVID FINCHER

The titles in this film fit extremely well with the overall theme and tone of the film. The titles start off at a reasonable pace and then start to pop into frame in a haze. The text is played over the top of random clips, giving the serial killer in the film a bit of back story and explaining subtle plot points like how he leaves no fingerprints. In the brief glimpses, we can see the serial killer taking out random  texts in newspapers and the font of the titles is based around this. The font is very unorganised and is presented as if someone has cut dolls of film together and put them into snippets where they shouldn't be, this could also be a reference to another one of David Fincher's films, Fight Club. The sequence is played with unsettling music playing in the background, this shows a brief glimpse of the extremely dark moments that will follow.  The credits roll in a way that shows the main characters and key people in the film, but as the credits continue to roll, lesser known cast is presented in larger quantities and is evenly capped off at the end by naming the director before transitioning into the first scene.

Preliminary task, evaluation

We were set with the task of creating a sequence where we have a character walking down some stairs, waling through a door and having a conversation. We were set to achieve this by using a series of different shots that we have learned. i wanted to have smooth quick shots that flowed togetther well in order to improve on some of the flaws in my other tasks. i feel that i managed to reflect what i have learned so far in the way that i edited the stair sequence together in a smooth way without wasting too much time on one shot. For the door opening i wanted to have a swift movement trough the door, i was able to express this through three shots that flowed from the stair scene, and into the conversation. For the conversation, i have realised some of the mistakes that i have made. these mistakes include, the framing of one of the shots that cuts out the top of kier's head and the way the conversation was filmed.

the dramatic door evaluation

we were set with the task of filming an action shot of person walking through a door using different shots. when i heard the idea of an action shot i created a literal idea in my head of an over dramatic action door opening scene using quick cuts and multiple shots with a lot of variation between them. i used a well lighted environment with a door that would be able to quickly open in a dramatic fashion. i spent time shooting multiple shots that could fit the tempo that i wanted. when i got back, i began to edit the footage, attempting to make the shots run as long as they needed and to run as smoothly as possible. i managed to find some music that fitted the tempo and i added some title screens to add to the dramatic effect. if i could change anything about the way i shot the film, i would have had better lighting for the indoor scenes in order to make the image quality better but overall, i found the film to have been successful in what i wanted to achieve.To make this better, i need to establish the direction that the person is walking, especially in the last shot.

Film opening evaluation

The Dark Knight

I have chosen to look at the opening of the dark knight, not only because it is one of my favourite films but because its opening is a perfect setup for the film to come. Everyone knows about heath ledgers iconic performance in this film and due to some genius writing Christopher Nolan ensures that no screen time was wasted by almost subliminally feeding the audience the jokers back story and character traits. The scene is set within a bank robbery with what seem to be masked henchmen that have been hired by the joker. dialogue between each henchman slowly build up facts about the character and his image to others in the world. slowly the genius nature of the joker presents itself to the audience as it becomes seemingly more obvious that the joker has convinced each robber to try to kill the others in hopes of splitting a bigger take two ways. this continues after each robber has outlived their usefulness and there are only two left. one raises a gun to the other robber who is checking his watch and is eventually killed by the timing of a bus crashing through a wall. the robber then chucks the bags of money to the driver then murders him in an almost comic fashion. the importance of this individual becomes clear when he approaches an injured bank worker then cuts to a close up of his face as he removes his mask revealing it to be the joker who has now acquired the full take of the bank heist. This bank heist becomes the base on which the rest of the story builds upon and perfectly sets an amazing film into motion.

Goodfellas

i have chosen goodfellas because it remains an extremely memorable opening in my mind with a strong image and sets a powerful tone. the scene throws us in into the middle of the film in a car featuring our three main characters in the film, jimmy, henry hill and tommy. the scene begins i the style of a mystery film with the characters driving down a road with a strange noise coming from the boot of the car. the characters pullover to 'investigate' the noise. when they open the boot a person is revealed wrapped in a bloody blanket with tape on his mouth. Red appears to be the colour that Scorsese intends to be the most prominent, appearing in the mist of the taillight and the blood on the person. it is revealed in this moment that these characters do know this character and in fact placed the person in the boot. Scorsese uses this moment to make the audience familiar with each characters personality as tommy bursts into a violent rage and repeatedly stabs the body over and over, then jimmy supports him by firing multiple shots into the body to ensure the job is complete. the camera then cuts to a shocked henry hill who then closes the boot down and begins to transition into a voiceover of the character stating "as far as i can remember, i always wanted to be a gangster". As Henry shuts the boot, 'rags to riches' begins to play out as it jumps the audience back to the beginning of the film following a younger Henry Hill as the story begins to unfold. the line offers a certain irony to the characters current situation and guarantees the audience that there are dark times to come, perfectly setting up the film. The audience are given the tempo of the film over the course of two minutes with shocking violence, diverse characters and a great soundtrack that leaves the viewer wanting to see more.

Pulp fiction

The film begins with the final scene in the film. since the film is played out in a disjointed order, this scene actually takes place roughly in the middle of the storyline. it begins in a simple diner setting with a couple sitting at a table having a conversation. what makes this opening so memorable is the crazy ride that tarantino takes us on as he slowly builds up the characters more and more until the climax of the scene. the characters begin talking in what seems to be a simple conversation until it is revealed that they are talking about robberies. the characters are very polite to the waitress as they order, then they are made even more complicated when they are revealed to be robbers and they begin discussing the idea of robbing a diner. tarantino finally flicks the switch completey on the audience when the male drops a magnum on the desk. the couple share a last kiss as they say they love each other while they refer to each other as 'pumpkin' and 'honey bunny'. the scene then completely changes once more as they climatically spiral out of control as the kind couple change into swearing, money hungry psychopaths. the music kicks in and the opening credits roll. this quick scene of well developed, complex characters is a fantastic opening that then leads to an iconic moment to come in the films final scene, while giving the audience a perfectly brief taster of the insanity to follow.

the conversation evaluation

today we were set with the task to film a simple conversation using three camera angles. the aim was to waste as little space on the screen as possible, so i filled the shot up with a balance of two characters with carrying angles depending on which character was talking. i found this task to be quite successful and the only problems that i encountered featured the audio quality. the conversation was sometimes difficult to hear because of background noise and the distance between the character and the camera. overall i would have liked to use more shots. I missed opportunities to get reaction shots from each person, and i let some shots run on for too long when they should have switched quicker.

the murder evaluation

In media we were given a task to complete a short film composed of three shots. these shots included a long shot, a medium shot and a close up.In order to create a more interesting series of shots,i included a minor story to give each shot a purpose. the story was titled 'The Murder' and featured someone stumbling upon a dead body and this gave me the opportunity to reuse some shots to add to the story. once i completed a simple storyboard of the shots that i wanted to use i went out ad filmed them. while filming i was faced with some simple challenges, one of which included preventing myself from being seen in any reflections within the shot which i avoided by readjusting some of the angles that i had originally planed. once i finished i began to edit the clips together and started to search for some fitting music for the tone of the film. i feel that overall the attempt was quite successful, but there are minor problems that need to be solved such as the way the camera shakes during the scenes but i can fix this by using a tripod.