Vertigo analysis

The title sequence for vertigo depicts Saul Bass' well know style , we the use of both graphics and actors. He shows a female character assumed to be the protagonist of the film looking scared and afraid. We see an extreme close up on her face and then the camera is brought up to her eyes where we see the fear and then we see the screen start to enter geometric shapes with bright colours it continues to get bigger and then leaves the screen another one talking it's placed quickly  afterwards. 

Saul Bass

Saul Bass is an American graphic designer who was born on May 8th 1920 in New York city.He is best know for his title sequences which use simple geometric shapes and stand alone images to crate a stong message.Bass started out in print based work such as movie posters and used shapes and images going away from the main style at the time which used mainly the actors face to sell the film to an audience. Bass was well know in the industry and his first well know title sequence was for "the man with the golden arm"by  Otto Preminger the film was about a heroin addict and spoken about by many due to the main topic of the film being extremely controversial.Bass kept to the style of simple shapes to create an image of an arm. 



He also created many title sequences with Alfred Hitchcock he created things such as the title sequence for North by Northwest (1959), Vertigo (1958) using his simple geometric shape style including strong colours with high contrast.He enjoyed making his title sequences a short visual metaphor or creating a story with them.Bass died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in Los Angeles on April 25, 1996 at the age of 75.

Specification

Video
Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.
Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.
All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source. Both preliminary and main tasks may be done individually or as a group. Maximum four members to a group. 

Skyfall Title sequence analysis

The title sequence for Skyfall shows a dark and mysterious feel to the audionce.IT is emphasized by the use of Adele’s voice in the soundtrack to emphasis and give it more power. This is also backed up by the mise-en-scene of guns, skulls and bullet wounds shown. The landscape of this and enemies are shown in an underwater setting to add more mystery as to what is going to take place. The use of dense shadowing gives of danger and makes the sequence foreshadows the thriller elements of the film.

 

The manipulation of the different shapes make it disconcerting as the audience is never sure what to expect next or what is going to happen .the location changes show the different settings that will be shown in the film. The camera tracks James Bond as he is the protagonist of the story and is an important part of the whole film. This is also true as the connotation of women in the title sequence as many shapes change from women in to weapons or which could connote the women are also an impotent part of the story as their silhouettes are often created by other shapes. The typography during the sequence stays small but are mainly in the middle of the shot so that the audience do not miss them but also so they can focus on the images and scenes going on behind them also.

Love Actually title sequence analysis

The title sequence uses soft non digetic music to set the tone and genre of the film. The use of the voice over talking about love and beginning to give hints about the narrative of the film. The audience assumes that this is the protagonist but do not see his face so are kept unsure about who he is. 

The use of long shots show people hugging again reinforcing the idea of love and care. This continues throughout the sequence showing many different ages,ethnicitys and genders of people hugging and kissing and zooms in on their happy faces. 

The use of the Heathrow airport arrivals gate is a place where love is a big part as many people their are seeing each other for the first time in a while and conveys the general happiness and love that people feel when they see family and friends again after a long time. 

Catch Me If You Can 2002 title sequence analysis

The title sequence for Catch me if you can shows a simple use of typography so as not to take away from the images being used.It uses two main types of typography. One of these types of typography includes a font that looks like a typewriter all of the typography is appearing on the screen where the images behind have the main focus and are moving and changing. The other font used looks like a western font which could connote the narrative of the film where the main character is fake almost like a cowboy. The title sequence uses both serif font and san-serif font in the duration of it. The serif font makes it look more old fashioned and formal whereas the san-serif font has an opposite effect to this. The rounded “DreamWorks” font makes the film look familiar and friendly to the audience as it is a big rounded font.

By using the effect of the text entering by lines this makes it look more coordinated in the sequence. The background images are symbolic to the events that happen during the film and tell the main story but without giving to much detail away. The effect of fading is used when the “me” fades away from the title which could connote the disappearing of the character as it disappears in to the clouds.

The creators of the title sequence Olivier Kuntzel Florence Deygas show to be heavily influenced by Saul bass as they used a huge amount of geometric shapes and lines to create images and allude what they wanted the text and images to say to the audience. They show a style that is inspired by Bass in all of his title sequences.

In conclusion this title sequence shows the story of catch me if you can without giving away to many details and giving away to much of the plot. It creates this in a style of graphic design and with bold typography.  

The Incredible Hulk (2008) Title sequence analysis

The titles of the film are a prologue for the film they tell the origin story of the film and describe what it is that took place before hand in the story that is explained in the film.IT uses montage clips to get the story across and uses flashbacks to reinforce that this story is being told about the consequences of past events.

The use of newspaper cuttings gives the audience information about the past events. It also continues the story and gives a mild hint to what will happen during the film. The main use of colours in the film include green which represents the Hulk and alludes that he will be a large part of the film.

The use of the filter of the surveillance camera pushes the context of the hunt for the Hulk and searching for him. The wall of photographs and of information also shows the audience the search for him and shoes the amount do destruction that he had caused. 

The close up of the ripping shorts and then speeding them up shows the strength that the Hulk possesses and the damage that he could pose and cause if not found.  

Forrest Gump title sequence analysis

The title sequence follows and tracks the movement of a feather through a town and shows the towns scenery. The feather falls slowly and in time with the music which seems to come across as magical. The sequence mainly uses wide shots and medium close ups mainly focused on the feather. The scenes blend straight in to the beginning of the film. 

The fonts used are mainly serif fonts that look old fashioned and elegant,almost like a magazine font. The fonts seem to be traditional and seem to convey themselves to be friendly and gentle whilst also showing itself as peaceful which is also sumo loser by the feather. 

The art of film title design

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/the-art-of-the-film-title-throughout-cinema-history/



"As much as possible, they liked to convey the tone of a movie through the “dressage” of its main title. Thus, blackletter fonts in the opening credits were used to evoke horror, ribbons and flowery lettering suggested love, and typography that would have been used on “Wanted” posters connoted a western flick."

This shows that the use of typography is en extremely important choice whilst creating title sequence as it conveys the genre of the film and choosing the wrong font can cause issues such as the wrong type of genre being shown to the audience.The font plays a huge part in connoting to the audience the type of film that it will be. It also shows how important the typography is when creating a title sequence. 

"It could be argued that typography lost importance in this era of title design. The imagery behind the credits received a lot more attention."

The importance of typography and text became less important when title design began to mainly focus on the images that were on screen instead of the information that was being displayed on the screen if font of them.This talks of the changing as before hand the text would have been the most important part of the title sequence.when imagery first began to be used in title sequences it took over the place of the text and seemed to become more important to an audience. 

"A consequence of this digital era seems to be that modern title design will forever rely on progressive technologies."

The forever changing and improving means that modern title sequences will incite to rely on technology and that it continues to improve at a fats pace.And that it will aconite to move forward and as the technology moves forward so will the creativity and making of title sequences.the modern day title sequences have become dependant and reliant on the contiunation of technology improvement so they can continue to do new and more interesting ideas. 

" But the measure of a title design’s quality is the same now as it was in the silent era. Whatever function they perform, titles remain an essential part of film."

The titles continue to be a huge part of a title sequence and will never not be used as of the importance that not only the information the title sequence includes but also what the typography used for it conveys to the audience without the use of images or speech. 


"Experimentation on the fringes, where title sequences really thrive, have led to all kinds of innovation in what a title can be and how it can serve the story and the director’s intent."

The creation of title sequences continue to improve and change over time as the technology used to create them thrives and changes but also that many more things have continued to be possible that were not possible to happen beforehand.The different directors have a lot more freedom to chose what to do with their title sequence and can be more inventive with what the do whilst creating them. 

continuity sequence

Our continuity sequence could have been improved if we made sure the camera was focused on every shot.

Se7en title sequence.

The title sequence for Se7en uses a series of images in different frames combined in to one, to create a sense of story. The different images overlap in the frames. Close up shots are used so that the viewer can see what the person is doing and can see in detail such things as what they are writing. The mood of the film is being set as the lighting is low creating dense shadows which establish the genre of the film as a horror/thriller film. The editing of the title sequence shows jump cuts which disorientate and make the audience members nervous as they are not sure what too expect next. This is also established through shots such as the close up shot of the razor blade and the shot of the pages of the book being sewn together making the viewer question what is going to come next. The use of only seeing the characters hands leave the audience with a lot of questions as to who he is and what he is doing ,the way he is being kept anonymous gives the audience the idea that he will remain that way through a lot of the film. The protagonist of the title sequence comes across to the audience as quite psychopathic with him crossing out people's eyes in images, The viewer also is made to feel uncomfortable with the use of music, which creates an eerie and unnerving atmosphere. As the music is non-diegetic it shows the room in which the sequence was taking place in was silent which gives the film an even more eerie and creepy feeling to it.


The font used in the title sequence is a handwritten font that is messy and almost childlike, and is used to show up the names of the cast and crew. During the title sequence it is irregularly placed and does not have one certain type of placing. The font is only shown on a black screen, so that none of the attention is moved away from the scenes taking place. It also makes it seem like the protagonist is away from modern technology as they have all their work handwritten and placed in front of them instead of having it on a computer. The editing of the film relies heavily on filters to make it look dark and grimy, which could almost foreshadow the events that take place in the film. The main colours used in the film are black browns and grey, creating a dark mood. Flashes of red are also incorporated to represent blood and danger that will take place later on in the film.



The way that the title sequence is set leaves the audience with many questions that get answered throughout the film. This leaves them hooked and intrigued to find out more about the protagonist and the events that will unfold later on in the film. It gives us hints and clues about the protagonist and make the audience start to think about events that may have already taken place, or are about to.Overall the title sequence introduced the genre and type of film that se7en is and started to introduce and inform the audience about the narrative of the story.  

Title sequence traits and contents.

The opening title sequence of a film includes different traits to engage the audience. It is also used to introduce the genre and ideas of the film.

The details of a title sequence include information about the cast and crew involved in the film including  the big actors that give the film star power are normally included in the beginning of the title sequence being introduced first. Other important names such as the name of the director is aloes normally included towards the beginning of the narrative but also are sometimes included towards the end before the title of the film depending on the placing of the film title. It also includes information about the films title and starts to introduce the character or the type of characters that will be seen and included in the film, normally the protagonist of the film is introduced to us through the title sequence. It also gives hints and indications of where the film that is being introduced will be set. The time period and when the film is set in time the general mood of the piece will also be included in the title sequence. It should also leave the viewer with questions about the film and the contents of it, it should give them small hints and clues but encourage them to keep watching to find out the answers t all of their question. Another trait that should be included is the storyline being hinted and small parts of the narrative to be introduced to the audience.

The title sequence could be a prologue for the narrative that is going to be explained and explored during the film. It could included pieces of information from the past of the film that may be needed for the audience to understand the narrative. The task of the title sequence is to introduce the audience to the film and to give them a general idea of the genre and some vents thatw will taker place in the film.