Thursday 18 December 2008
Tuesday 9 December 2008
Update On Title Sequence Ideas
We have developed our original idea futher and created a storyline that will connect the murderer to the victims. We decided that the four girls within the film will be potrayed as 'Barbie Doll' like linking our film name 'Dolls House' to the film and giving it relevants. The characters that we have formed will be unbelieveably beautiful obessed with their appearance, this of course will be the motivation for the vicious murders. This is because the killer will be disfigured due to an accident in his childhood leaving him in a unhealthy mental state of mind. The murderer will loathe them for there selfish indulgeances and therefore punish them.
When developing out storyline we also created a Logline which will describe our film in a few short sentences :
Skitsafranic detective seeks revengeon girls who indulge in a persuit of perfection.
When developing out storyline we also created a Logline which will describe our film in a few short sentences :
Skitsafranic detective seeks revengeon girls who indulge in a persuit of perfection.
Tuesday 2 December 2008
Research posting on Saul Bass
As part of my research for my thriller opening sequences i decided to look into some of Saul Bass’ outstanding work. He is most famous for designing motion picture opening sequences. I will be looking into a few of his opening sequence’s and analysing it as i believe it will help when it comes to filming my own opening sequence. I have looked at four sequences in detail and have analysed them as follows:
Psycho
Psycho is the most simplistic of all the sequences I looked at but this is no way makes it less effective. It used two elements: lines and text, which seem to be a signature of bass as it appears in many of his sequences. The colour scheme of the sequence was monotone as is the film, this is a reflection of its context. The simple crossing lines and sliding text was very fast paced and flowed continuously. Which helped build up an anticipation that a thriller such as psycho requires. This is the suspect of this sequence that I like so much. With as little as a black and white striped animation and accompanying music bass has built up tension effortlessly.
Around the world in 80 days.
This was he longest of all the sequences that I have watched and although this seemed to drag it seems as though it represents the 80 days, as it is almost as long, of the title. As with this simple fact the animation of the whole sequence seemed to reflect scenes form the film and therefore made this the main focus. By doing this bass has made the text of the opening titles minuscule and unimportant. It is almost ignorable amongst the obscene images such as marching elephants and bright changing colours. The sequence had very upbeat music which set the comical mood. The animation though 2 dimensional was a very cleaver and specific artistic style. This may reflect the artistic style of France, Italy and other places visited in the Narrative of the sequence. In contrast to psycho it was a lot slower moving but still seemed to have effortless transitions and simplicity. The colour plate of this sequence is bright and varied to show a fun side that goes with the comical animation and the comical movie it is opening. Another great aspect of this sequence is bass’ use of text, though small he animates that as well turning it into fireworks among other things.
Oceans eleven.
Oceans , though a similar simplistic design as psycho it uses a much more digital design of animation. It is simply a count down to eleven and then transitions into casino related images. The colours as before are very limited but bright and showy depending on the image to give a Vegas feel. The animation is kind of penalised and moves very slowly as if dissolving. This is in contrast to the fast paced psycho and the positive around the world. Like around the world the simple casino elements alude to the setting of the film though it is no where near as revealing as the other. Like around the world it has upbeat music that reflects the more positive themes of the film. Another comparison is the use of cards in this film as in around the worlds this too could be a motif of bass. I am less of a fan of this sequence then I am of psycho despite their very similar style.
Goodfellas.
As I have been looking at animation sequences I have decided to look at a realistic sequence and compare the two. The first thing ive noticed in the extremely different style to animation the only thing that remains the same is the use of texts and this is inevitable in a title sequence as characters need to be introduced. It starts with sliding and lines as the others but there is no musical accompaniment instead diegetic sound of a car passing goes along with the sliding text until the text fades and we see a real scene of a car on a road. Having no music is very odd and different and builds tension in a different way to Psycho. The real action goes straight into the story we are half way through a scene. The scene itself is very direct violent and shocking. This is to capture the audience attention straight off the bat as well as like before give a snapshot of the style of the film. Although the scene is realistic and shows the characters in the middle of the scene there is a voice over that gives us background to help introduce us into the film. There are also many new techniques applied with a real scene. Bass freezes the frame, he uses sweeping camera angles and mixes both the diegetic sound of the car with the non diegetic music. Although basses animation is fantastic an works well as a simplistic but effective tool I was much more intrigued with Goodfellas and it real scenes.
I have also included in this blog a documentary on bass that has him talking about his opening sequences. Who better to hear it from then the man himself!
Psycho
Psycho is the most simplistic of all the sequences I looked at but this is no way makes it less effective. It used two elements: lines and text, which seem to be a signature of bass as it appears in many of his sequences. The colour scheme of the sequence was monotone as is the film, this is a reflection of its context. The simple crossing lines and sliding text was very fast paced and flowed continuously. Which helped build up an anticipation that a thriller such as psycho requires. This is the suspect of this sequence that I like so much. With as little as a black and white striped animation and accompanying music bass has built up tension effortlessly.
Around the world in 80 days.
This was he longest of all the sequences that I have watched and although this seemed to drag it seems as though it represents the 80 days, as it is almost as long, of the title. As with this simple fact the animation of the whole sequence seemed to reflect scenes form the film and therefore made this the main focus. By doing this bass has made the text of the opening titles minuscule and unimportant. It is almost ignorable amongst the obscene images such as marching elephants and bright changing colours. The sequence had very upbeat music which set the comical mood. The animation though 2 dimensional was a very cleaver and specific artistic style. This may reflect the artistic style of France, Italy and other places visited in the Narrative of the sequence. In contrast to psycho it was a lot slower moving but still seemed to have effortless transitions and simplicity. The colour plate of this sequence is bright and varied to show a fun side that goes with the comical animation and the comical movie it is opening. Another great aspect of this sequence is bass’ use of text, though small he animates that as well turning it into fireworks among other things.
Oceans eleven.
Oceans , though a similar simplistic design as psycho it uses a much more digital design of animation. It is simply a count down to eleven and then transitions into casino related images. The colours as before are very limited but bright and showy depending on the image to give a Vegas feel. The animation is kind of penalised and moves very slowly as if dissolving. This is in contrast to the fast paced psycho and the positive around the world. Like around the world the simple casino elements alude to the setting of the film though it is no where near as revealing as the other. Like around the world it has upbeat music that reflects the more positive themes of the film. Another comparison is the use of cards in this film as in around the worlds this too could be a motif of bass. I am less of a fan of this sequence then I am of psycho despite their very similar style.
Goodfellas.
As I have been looking at animation sequences I have decided to look at a realistic sequence and compare the two. The first thing ive noticed in the extremely different style to animation the only thing that remains the same is the use of texts and this is inevitable in a title sequence as characters need to be introduced. It starts with sliding and lines as the others but there is no musical accompaniment instead diegetic sound of a car passing goes along with the sliding text until the text fades and we see a real scene of a car on a road. Having no music is very odd and different and builds tension in a different way to Psycho. The real action goes straight into the story we are half way through a scene. The scene itself is very direct violent and shocking. This is to capture the audience attention straight off the bat as well as like before give a snapshot of the style of the film. Although the scene is realistic and shows the characters in the middle of the scene there is a voice over that gives us background to help introduce us into the film. There are also many new techniques applied with a real scene. Bass freezes the frame, he uses sweeping camera angles and mixes both the diegetic sound of the car with the non diegetic music. Although basses animation is fantastic an works well as a simplistic but effective tool I was much more intrigued with Goodfellas and it real scenes.
I have also included in this blog a documentary on bass that has him talking about his opening sequences. Who better to hear it from then the man himself!
Monday 1 December 2008
Idea For Opening Squences
For our opening squences we decided that we will film it all in black and white expect for a scene of dripping blood. We concluded on this idea as we wanted to make the dripping blood significant to the squences. The squences will switch from on scene to another in a stylish way smiliar to 'the ring' opening squences which is another film i will be anaylising. My group and I have planned our squences as we would like to film it. However it is only a rough plan as our ideas and thoughts will progress as time goes on. The plan consists of:
The opening shot is a close up on a jewllery box with a ballerina inside slowly turning. The music of the jewllery box will be the only noise heard and as the ballerina turns the name and tile will role.
We will quickly switch to the main location which is an old and revolting show room. We will slowly zoom out of the showing room revealing the room to the audience and as it zooms out it will go into the next scene which is the murderer making his models of the murder scene. within in this shot the killer will remain unseen by the audience and only his hands shown.
The next scene will change to colour to show the blood slowly dripping into the sink and turning the water red. To discover how i am going to make the blood i plan to research it as a progress in making this tile squence.
The audience are then able to see the model that the killer is making, showing them where and how he/she is going to kill them. As the camera zooms into the model it will go straight into the scene that the murderer has created. Within in this shot the audience will see a dead girl on the floor and a girl tired to a chair. The camrea will start in a middle close up shot and go into a close up shot of the girl sitting on the chair with her make up running down her face. As the camera gets extremly close to the girl she will scream and will switch to next scene.
This scene consists of two girls running down a long dark corridor but one of the girls trip and gets dragged away. The camera we zoom in on the girl getting dragged aways and show her digging her nails into the floor, to prevent the killer pulling her away.
For the last scene it will flick from one shot to another extremly quickly and then go fuzzy to give the effect of some changing the channel. This idea is again from the film 'the ring'. The camera will then zoom out to reveal someone sitting at a table weaing leather gloves. The camera will turn to the jewllery box and as the music ends so does the opening squences.
We plan to fit all out ideas into a 2-3minute opening squence. We have choosen to only have the jewllery box as our music and we believe that it gives a sense of creepyness and innocents.
The opening shot is a close up on a jewllery box with a ballerina inside slowly turning. The music of the jewllery box will be the only noise heard and as the ballerina turns the name and tile will role.
We will quickly switch to the main location which is an old and revolting show room. We will slowly zoom out of the showing room revealing the room to the audience and as it zooms out it will go into the next scene which is the murderer making his models of the murder scene. within in this shot the killer will remain unseen by the audience and only his hands shown.
The next scene will change to colour to show the blood slowly dripping into the sink and turning the water red. To discover how i am going to make the blood i plan to research it as a progress in making this tile squence.
The audience are then able to see the model that the killer is making, showing them where and how he/she is going to kill them. As the camera zooms into the model it will go straight into the scene that the murderer has created. Within in this shot the audience will see a dead girl on the floor and a girl tired to a chair. The camrea will start in a middle close up shot and go into a close up shot of the girl sitting on the chair with her make up running down her face. As the camera gets extremly close to the girl she will scream and will switch to next scene.
This scene consists of two girls running down a long dark corridor but one of the girls trip and gets dragged away. The camera we zoom in on the girl getting dragged aways and show her digging her nails into the floor, to prevent the killer pulling her away.
For the last scene it will flick from one shot to another extremly quickly and then go fuzzy to give the effect of some changing the channel. This idea is again from the film 'the ring'. The camera will then zoom out to reveal someone sitting at a table weaing leather gloves. The camera will turn to the jewllery box and as the music ends so does the opening squences.
We plan to fit all out ideas into a 2-3minute opening squence. We have choosen to only have the jewllery box as our music and we believe that it gives a sense of creepyness and innocents.
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