CONVENTIONS – titles, idents, production context

IDENTS:

Here I chose 4 Films, and looked at the number of idents, and their length, two films are from Working Title, and two from Warp.

Johnny English (Working Title, audio bridge):

• Universal 24s
• Studio Canal 20s
• Perfect World 6s
• Working Title 10s

  Worlds End (Working Title, audio bridge):

• Universal 20s
• Working Title 9s 

Southcliffe (Warp):

•     NO IDENTS

Partisan(Warp, audio bridge):

• Protagonist Pictures 6s 
• Animal Kingdom. 8s 
• Screen Australia 10s
• Warp 7s
  

Oceans 11:

• Warner Bros 15s
• Village Roadshow 8s

The average amount if idents per film is 3 ident  

The average length: 14.9s  

The average length of indie companies:  8.1s

The longest is: Johnny English: Universal 24s   

The shortest are: Johnny English: Perfect World 6s, Partisan: Protagonist pictures 6s

 so my idents will be between 5-10s

MY IDENT:

...

for the actual peoples names we will pick 3 appropriate film, and take crew names from those, with cast, also can include existing actors

cast:

starring

co-staring

featuring

introducing

companies:

a [companyName] production

a [companyName] feature

presented by [companyName]

in association with [companyName]

crew:

cinematographer [name] 

cinematography by [name]

TITLES:

 71':

NUMBERS:

Number of people: 0

Number of company titles: 6

Start time: 0:00:40

End time: 0:00:48

Run time of titles: 8s

Titles list (in order):

 FILM 4 AND BFI PRESENT

SCREEN YORKSHIRE AND CREATIVE SCOTLAND PRESENT

 A CRAB APPLE FILMS AND WARP FILMS PRODUCTION

 

does it follow auteur theory? No (no cast or crew is mention in the film)

DESIGN:

serif, varying size, black on white, connoting a serious tone, all upper case.

FX, ANIMATION :

static - connoting a serious tone.

THE COMPANIES 

6 companies were mentioned -  film4 is a TV station that took contributed to the film so that it can broadcast the film. BFI, Screen Yorkshire and Creative Scotland all gave grants for this film to be produced, because its an indie film, and then Crab Apple films, another indie film company like Warp Films. 

ROLES 

 No roles were given a title, not even the director (who normally gets two credits (auteur theory)), which is a surprise.

GENRE/NARRATIVE CONNOTATIONS 

 

They are in this style:

 

 Georgia (or similar) font - serif - white on black . all upper case, large company names, smaller other words - on the left half of the screen - on the last one Warps logo is also shown

The probable preferred reading is that the film has a serious tone to it. 

 

BRIDGET JONES DIARY:

NUMBERS:

Number of people: 21

Number of company titles: 4

Start time: 0:05:01

End time: 0:07:01

Run time of titles: 2m

Titles list (in order):

UNIVERSAL PICTURES STUDIO CANNAL MIRAMAX FILMS present

A WORKING TITLE production

Renée Zellweger

Collin Firth 

and Hugh Grant 

Jim Broadbent 

Gemma Jones 

Casting by Michelle Guish 

Line producer Peter McAleese

Music Supervisor Nick Angel 

Co-producers Debra Hayward Liza Chasin 

Original Score by Patrick Doyle

Costume Designer Rachael Fleming

Production by Gemma Jackson

Editor Martin Walsh

Director of Photography Stuart Dryburgh

Executive Producer Helen Fielding 

Based on the novel by Heleven Fielding

Screenplay by Helen Fielding Andrew Davis Richard Curtis

Produced by Tim Bevan Eric Fellen Jonathan Cavendish

Directed by Sharon Maguire 

BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY   

does it follow auteur theory? yes(Helen Fielding is actually there 3 times)

DESIGN:

smaller text (job title): sans-serif, varying size, orange, connoting a fairly serious tone, mix case

larger text (name): serif, varying size, orange, connoting a non-serious tone, mix case.

FX, ANIMATION :

static

THE COMPANIES 

4 companies were mentioned -  Universal is a vertically integrated conglomerate that has Working Title as one of its subsidiaries. The other companies are Studio Canal and Miramax Films, all parts of vertically integrated conglomerates.

ROLES 

many roles were given titles, these ones:

• 5 actors
• Casting director
• Line producer 
• Music supervisor
• Two co-producers
• Original score
• Costume Designer
• Producer
• Editor
• Director of photography
• Executive producer
• The author of the novel its based on
• screenplay director
• producers
• and director
  

GENRE/NARRATIVE CONNOTATIONS 

 

They are in this style:

for smaller text: Goergia (or similar) font, sans-serif, for larger text: serif - orange - mixed case, large company/names, smaller other words - on the left half of the scree

The probable preferred reading is that the film has a romantic, and possibly comedic tone to it. 

Baby Driver:

Number of people: 28

Start time: 0:05

End time: 2:58

Run time: 2:53

List of Titles:

 TRI STAR and MRC present

a WORKING TITLE BIG TALKS production

a film by EDGAR WRIGHT

ANSEL ELGORT

KEVIN SPACEY

LILY JAMES

JON BERTHAL

with JON HAMM

and JAIME FOX

EIZA GONZALEZ FLEA

SKY FERRIERA, LANNY JOON, R.MARCUS TAYLOR

casting by FRANCHIE MAISER, csa

choreography by RYAN HEFFINGTON

costume designer COURTNEY HOFFMAN

music by STEVEN PRICE

editors PAUL MACHLISS ace, JONATHAN AMOS ace

production designer MARCUS ROWLAND

director of photography BILL POPE asc

executive producers EDGAR WRIGHT, RACHEL PRIOR, JAMES BIDDLE

executive producers ADAM MERMINS, LIZA CHASIN, MICHELLE WRIGHT

produced by NIRA PARK, TIM BELVAN, ERIC FELLINER

written and directed by EDGAR WRIGHT

Oceans 11:

Number of people: 0

Start time: 2:00

End time: 2:18

Run time: 8s

Titles shown:

WARNER BROS PICTURES presents

in association with VILLAGE ROADSHOW PRODUCTIONS and NPV ENTERTAINMENT

a JW/SECTION EIGHT production

OCEANS ELEVEN

SOUND:

 MUSIC:

Music is a major element in many film openings, we plan to have music in our opening. 

Films such as Baby Driver, have songs in the opening, baby driver used the entire 5 mins of the song Bellbottoms (by "The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion"), one of the 44 song used in the film, and it was made specifically for the film. Here is a link to the rest of the songs in Baby Driver.

The film Yesterday, also has a song in its opening, it has two songs in the opening, including Summer Song. it has 27 songs in the film, many of which are One Direction songs (Working Title payed 10m just for the rights to the songs), and original Ed Sheeran songs that were created for the film. Here is a link to the rest of the songs on yesterday.

AMBIANT SOUND:

Many aspects of film are vital to achieve verisimilitude, amongst them are Foley sound and ambient sound. 

Most films use many forms of Foley sound, that can range from the sound of a gun firing to a voice over, to the sound of footsteps.

FIRST SHOT:

The first shot is vital in creating atmosphere. There has to be a good balance between exposition and narrative enigma, to catch the audience's curiosity but still telling the audience about the characters had having them develop.

This Is England has a long take where they skilfully expose a lot of information including the time frame and information about the child's father, but without giving us to much information too quickly, such as his face, that takes a few seconds before its shown, and he does not speak until a bit into the film, and his first words are swearwords.

Baby Driver is another film that successfully captures its audience by also only exposing some information, the opening scene is of a group of thieves breaking into a bank, we don't hear anyone talk, for a long time as well, and the main character even longer the the rest.

CENTRAL PROTAGONIST + NARRATIVE:

There are many ways directors anchor the central protagonist including:

1. Framing - rule of thirds, framing the main character centrally helps connote they are the protagonist
2. cutting back to them while others are speaking - this can allow us to know what the protagonists feelings to be portrayed as the person they are talking to speaks
3. tracking/panning shots - tracking and panning shots tend to follow the most important person, which is the protagonist in most cases
4. variable focus -  if a character is out of focus it often means that they are not the protagonist, but there are a few outliers to this rule
5. distinctive clothing - the protagonist tends to have clothing or features that allow you to distinguish them from the rest of characters especially in crowd scenes or birds eye view scenes

 TODOROV:

Equilibrium => Disequilibrium => Realisation => Fix => New equilibrium

Those are the 5 steps of  Todorov's theory, and in general the majority of films follow it, some films such as "forest gump" and several others start with the end, thus do not follow it.

MONOMYTH / HERO'S JOURNEY:

the monomyth / hero's journey was invented by Campbell, it describes the troubles that a hero would go through in any narrative piece.

MISE-EN-SCENE:

Mise-en-scene is vital to convey the belief of realism, mise-en-scene is everything that you can see in frame, including costume, furniture, and decorations. the mise-en-scene is how the majority of the story is shown, it is boring and unappealing if the characters simply say everything that is going on, instead by having a lot of small things connoting and anchoring a certain preferred reading, this allows the director to have a lot more creativity in the text.

TRANSITION TO MAIN FILM:

there are many ways to transition to the main film, many films fade into the film, they tend to also have and audio bridge.

the film " '71 " has a audio bridge connecting the titles sequence to the film itself, they have the sound of the boxing scene  start before we can see it, this creates narrative enigma, and lets the audience attempt to predict what they are going to see, which builds up tension.

AUDIANCE AND REPRESENTATIONS:

Age ratings have a big impact on the success of a film, indie films have been recorded to be getting much worse age ratings than big 5 vertically integrated conglomerate tentpole/blockbuster films which hugely damage their sales.

Our video summing most of it up: