Research into the film roles

As I will be making a film opening scene, I am researching into different roles in the film production. 

DIRECTOR

First, the main role of making a film is the director. Director is in charge of every parts in the film. They are closed related to producers. They are the artists who use actors to express their thought. Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Michael Bay and James Wan are all very famous film directors. 

James Wan is an Australian film director and also a producer. He is famous of his horror films. 

-       Dead Silence (2007)

-       The Conjuring (2013)

-       Fast & Furious 7 (2015)

He is the first Asian director who have two films make a billion dollars at the box office. ‘The Conjuring’ he directed won Bandung Film Festival for Commendable Imported Horror film.

 

CAMERA OPERATOR

In the film production, the importance of the camera operator is second only to the director. They are responsible for shooting and capturing the actions in the film. They will also consider the lighting. For example, Roger Deakins is one of the best camera operator of all time.

He is an English cinematographer. He won 2 Oscar of ‘Best Achievement in Cinematography’. 

He is known for: Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Skyfall (2012), 1917 (2019) and No Country for old men (2007).

 

EDITOR

They are key role in film production. They are responsible for selecting,organising and cutting all the shot material. Then putting all the short parts together to make a complete movie. Different editing techniques can allow the film to express different emotional expressions and story lines.

Thelma Colbert Schoonmaker is an American film editor. She works with Martin Scorsese (a directer) over fifty years.

She won 3 times in the ‘Best Film Editing’ – Raging Bull (1980), The Aviator (2004) and The Departed (2006) and 8 nominations.  

ART DIRECTOR

They are the designers of the movie. They need to complete the design of the settings and props, and ensure that the film’s picture is good looking.

Gary Tomkins is known for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011), Rogue one (2016) and Star Wars (2015). He won ‘Excellence in Production Design Award’ in 2012 and 2000. And also won a BFDG Award of ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Art Department’ in 2020. 

PRODUCER

Producers always work with the directors. They are responsible for the production of the film including the script, the actors and the financing of the film. 

Michael Mann is a great producer, director and a screenwriter. He is one of the most talented and influential filmmakers in American. He is known for ‘The Insider (1999)’, ‘Collateral (2004)’ and ‘The last of the Mohicans (1992).’ He has been nominated for 4 Oscars and won ‘Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures – The Insider and The Aviator’ in 2000 and 2005.

Comparing title sequences

The first title sequence I am looking at is Grease. Grease is released in 1978. The director is Randal Kleiser and the top casting are John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John and Stockard Channing. It is produced by Paramount Pictures Studios with a budget of $6 million in total. 

The Genre: From the upbeat and positive soundtrack and the comic feeling font, it shows a musical and romance genre. Also it uses ‘as’ which gives the idea of performance.

The Title: ‘Grease’, ‘John Travolta as Danny’, ‘Produced by Robert Stigwood and Allan Carr’, ‘Director by Randal Kleiser’

Tone: fun, upbeat, positive film. The opening is in style of animation and use of character drawings

Location/time: 1950’s, because there are some iconic period imagery and the style of the costume and props. USA. It is in high school setting, it has the fades from animation to the real life at the end.

Narrative: In high school, the teenagers, romance story from the juxtaposition of a male and female character, groups - ‘gangs’, the cars are a important element, from the characters’ bedroom it shows a conflict in difference, rebellion (smoking scene and driving cars)

Character hints:

Danny - messy, lazy, the leader as he is the first character appears, rebellion, rock, cool. He is the character who creates the ‘Grease’ title

Sandy - Wealth, kind, beautiful, use of animals which is very similar with Disney princess, has a princess vibe, might change Danny in the story

The second one is from American Horror story, it is produced by 20th Television. 

Genre: Horror, shows from the soundtrack which has some sound effects that create a uncomfortable feeling, the dark lighting, has iconic horror imagery (the blood, the doll, the knives), in the gothic font style

Title: ‘Connie Britton’, ‘Created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’, ‘American Horror story’

Time: America, in the basement at house, hunted house vibe, sense modern old “past and present”

Narrative: POV with a flashlight, someone searching / discovering / uncovering

Character hints: a sense of killer(s), horrifying, white dress which gives a innocence female stereotypical victim

The function of an opening title sequence

• They tells the key institution information of the film such as the director or the casting.
• There are actually 21 main title sequences: Money, Production, Directors name film, Main star, Film title, Actor 12345, Casting, Costume designer, Music, Edited, Production designer, Director of Photography (DOP), Executive Producer, Produced by, Based upon, Screen Play (writer), Director.
• Firstly, they reflect the tone, narrative and genre by using the font and colours. Different colours can connotes different mood and tone. For example, black connotes a evil and horror tone; pink gives a romance feeling. Moreover, the way that they are applied give the narrative ideas of the film. Next, the transition and editing in the title sequence also the sense of the narrative. Most interestingly, the way they applied to the film world conveys different tones and might hints the characters (are they protagonist or antagonist).
• In the title sequence, it often tells one or more settings and locations related to the further storyline.
• For example, the title sequence for ‘Defending Jacob’. The dark tone suggests horror and mysterious.
  
  
  
• And for this one, the tone is colourful and bright. The pink with both the female and male characters gives us a romantic and drama genre feeling.
  
  
  

Research into a thriller film

I will be looking the opening scene of Joker. Joker has been released in 2019. The Director of it is Todd Philips, the casting includes Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro and Zazie Beetz. It was produced by Warner Bros. Pictures with a budget of $70 million. 

The tone and the genre has been set straight away in the opening scene. The dim and noisy environment with the diegetic sound effect of the local news underneath it gives an unsettling tone.

The handheld shooting gives a unstable feeling. From the extreme close up, we can see the facial expression on Arthur. He is putting the joker’s makeup on. From the action of forcibly pulling the corners of his mouth, we can feel a strong sense of depression on him. As he lifted the corner of his mouth vigorously, the tear remained with the dizzy makeup. Here can emphasise and express his inner pain, he has a very contradiction emotion. From his facial expression and the movements, he is clearly depresses and sad.

However, his job is to be the joker which can only express the happiness and joy. This link to the next scene with a simple straight cut, while Arthur becomes the Joker and suddenly creates a fake happy and joyful atmosphere by the diegetic music form a piano. Although in the opening scene, there wasn’t any thriller scene, the fighting scene in the end suggests the crime. This might be a hint to the thriller part later in the film. The genre of the film might be drama, crime and thriller. The unsettling and depressive tone gives the sort of slow, ramp up into insanity. Based on the genre and the tone, I think the target audience for this film might be adults and teenagers around 16 to 18. Because this contains some uncomfortable and sad atmosphere. Also, it includes the bullying and fighting parts which suggest the crime scene. In addition, from the opening scene we can feel the stress and exhaustion of Arthur in life, which may make it easier for adults to empathise.

 

Through this extract, we can clearly know the main character is Arthur, because he has most of the screen time. I think what surprised me the most is the transition from Arthur to Joker. At first, Arthur is in the lounge and putting his joker makeup on. We can see that he is separate from others, sitting alone in front of the mirror.

From his facial expression and the position, he expressed a depressing and lonely emotion. By the use of the depth of field, emphasises his own repression and contradiction. His silent contract with the noisy diegetic ambient sound in the background. Also, the light in this theme is dim. These connote a sad and lonely atmosphere. Then the scene changed by a sound bridge which is from non-diegetic to diegetic.

While the music starts to play, Arthur becomes the Joker. The setting changed to the busy market of Gotham.

The visual representation of the joker outfit such as the green hair and the big shoes suggests Arthur is pretending the Joker because of his job. The emotion changed to joy and happiness as the Joker can be express the positive emotion to ours. Joker appeared by the music. But even if the emotion he expressed was happy at the beginning, he was immediately bullied by a group of people. Even though he and others ask for help, at most marginalised people like him will only make people look back. Here connotes the hard and pain of his life as reflected in the indifference of the people at that time.

From the long tracking shot while they are running, the buildings behind them are very close, they have no space between which connotes the pressure and oppressive felling. Later on, there is a very special camera angle while the people are hitting Arthur. This is a high angle shot but with a strange tilt which looks like a frame in the graphic novel.

This shot make Arthur more helpless and weak. Other characters like the people that bullied Arthur are presented as bully and bad, they are opposite with Arthur. In summary, it seems that the emotions and atmospheres expressed by these two scenes are different. One is dim, quiet and autistic, however the other is lively, happy and bright. But both of them connotes the difficult life of the protagonist Arthur and his oppressive feeling.

 

The opening ends with Arthur wearing the Joker’s makeup and lying in a broken alley and the large yellow title. For the following story lines, I supposed that Arthur was bullied and beaten at the beginning, and there may be a reversal later. His depressed heart and forbearance all the time may explode one day. Moreover, the change might cause a serous consequence which may lead to the crime and thrill later. I suppose that there might be a oppressive feeling throughout the whole movie.

 

To conclude, I think the opening scene is really successful and it engaged me a lot. The whole story line at the beginning can fully express Arthur’s emotions and characteristics. In addition, the different settings and the musics lead us into the story more.

I think the story line and the ending scene left us a lot of suspense. In addition to worrying about Arthur, we will also look forward to whether he will fight back and take revenge in the future. Will he resist this kind of meaningless and painful life later in the film? Just looking at this opening will make me very interested in the plot that follows. Furthermore, from the details and good shooting techniques and narration of the story, I think this is an extremely successful beginning for a film.

Research into an horror film

I chose the horror film – The conjuring 2 (2016). The director of it is James Wan. The top casts are Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Madison Wolfe. It is produced by New Line Cinema and distributed by Warner Bros. Studio. The total budget is $40 million. The beginning of the film directly tells a short story to lead to the plot afterwards.

The opening starts with the voiceover which tells the audience more information about the story. We know the time and the setting straight away by the subtitle- Amityville, New York, 1976.

It warns us the dangerous by the dialogue “But this one, this one still haunts me.” At the start. This creates a horror atmosphere. Then it uses a long shot to follow the staff all the way to a table that surrounded by people. This shows the environment and the setting clearly. After the introduction, they drew up the curtains to cover the sun, and the whole room became dim. Darkness connotes evil and dangerous. The horror tone has been set perfectly by using the ambient sound in the background with the devil whispers and the pleonastic sound of the gun shooting sounds. Furthermore, the killing actions with the blood creates the thriller and horrific atmosphere. There is also a small detail that the lighting changes between the reality and the haunted timeline. it is in the warm lighting for the real world, however in the haunted house the lighting is dark and cold. Because the elements of the evil spirit and the haunted events, I think the target audience is people over 16. In addition, because it is a horror film, it is easy to reach world wide audiences.

There are several characters in the opening video clip, but we can know the woman is the protagonist from the screen time. Base on the story line, we know that she can be psychic, and can see ghosts or possessed on others. “Ronnie Defoe had brutally murdered his entire family in this house, we’d hope to discover if the killing had been motivated purely by anger or if he had been. Under the influence of something demonic.” The scene changed by this voiceover and a zooming in extreme close up shot of her eyes. The special lighting on her eyes connotes the special power of the woman that she can see or possessed on the spirits.

The eyes opened with a loud gun shot which shows that she is already transform to the day that the man kills his family. When she opened her eyes and walked out alone, rules of thirds were used here to show two of herself. On the left is her with the group of people in reality, while on the right is her who is already in a different world.

There is candlelight on the left so it is warm, while the one on the right is in the dark. Here connotes that terrible things will happen in the world on the right. The woman is very calm and seemed have lots of the experience at the start. But over time, she began to become flustered and scared. The high angle shots in the upstairs gives audience pressures.

From the woman's mechanical killing movements and expressions, the audience could be aware that she was out of control. Moreover, from the figure in the shadow and the man in the mirror, we can know that the heroine possessed on the man who killed the whole family so she can know what has happened on that day. Zoom in shot on the man makes people realise that the heroine is not conscious, and also makes the audience feel even more scared by seeing his facial expressions clearly. In summary, we get many information of the main characters and from her facial expressions, her feeling change from calm and brave to afraid. This can hint the following plot.

The opening is basically recalling a psychic events she investigated before, from the voiceover at the start we can know that this time is very special and has a great impact on her. The beginning ended in her extreme panic. I think the next storyline may continue this haunted incident. Because the heroine is here to investigate this incident, there may be some ghosts or demons doing bad things in the future. It is also possible that after this incident is over, the woman will continue to investigate another haunted incident because this is her profession and mission.

 

I think the opening scene is amazing as it really engage people in. The non-diegetic soundtrack from beginning to end is parallel to the mood. This can magnify our panic.

The tense atmosphere makes the audience feel like they are in a haunted room, and the combination of sound effects and the frames makes the whole beginning very fascinating. It is easily to grab people into the story. In addition, it tells many useful information at the start by the voiceover, so the audience won’t be confused.