Title Design Research: Always Shine

 

The Website Used was “Art of the Title” 

1.How many titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film? Which ones?  

The titles shown are the names of the cast, producers, writers, and directors. They also show the studios that produced the film. For Example in this film it is “Visit Films” and is associated by “Salem St.Entertainment.”  

2.    What connotations do the images carry?

    The images in this opening sequence are extremely fitting for the genre of the movie. Most of the shots are extreme close-ups. This fully focuses on the actress's face. All of the shots hyper-focus on the unnerving acting. This immediately shows the audience that something is wrong. Many of the shots are unfocused and constantly moving as well. This is connotated with vulnerability, as if the viewer is running from something. Therefore, this instills fear or suspense in the viewer. 

  
 

3.    How is genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset?

You can immediately tell the genre of the film from the non-diegetic sound used. They are extremely tense and harsh violins. This makes everything shown in the opening sequence much more dramatic than it would be without it. The second main source of a thriller film comes from the actors' dialogue. She is extremely frantic and almost sounds insane simply off her tone. Symbolically, as the music gets faster, so does the actors’ dialogue, much like a mystery would do in all the rest of its elements. 

4.    What conventions are used to ensure the film appeals to its target audience? 

The large use of non-diegetic sound is the main convention used here that is often used in thrillers. Not only is it violins; it is a variety of other things. For example, fast and out-of-tune piano sprinkled throughout the entire sequence. If it is not an instrument, it is a loud bang or an undiscernible loud sound. This shows its target audience that, whatever this film is about, it will be tense and dramatic. That is exactly what its target audience would be looking for. This is especially considering that the viewer is looking for a mystery. Additionally, mysteries are expected to be fast-paced in certain parts, so fast-paced music communicates this as well. 

Title Design Research : Rosemary's Baby

 A movie we all viewed for a title design is called ‘’Rosemary’s Baby’’. The website I used to find this film was ‘’Art of the Title’’. The film displays lots of different titles. In the beginning it starts by showing two major titles, which were ‘’Paramount’' and ‘’William Castle Productions’’. As soon as the film starts, music is played throughout. After the main titles are shown, the actor’s name that plays the main character is shown. In the background of the names and titles, viewers can see the scenery of a city. The different titles include the productions, the main actor, co-stars, other actors, producers, directors, editors, designers, managers, sound recorders and more. It then displays that the film is from a novel, and they credit the person who made the novel. The scenery in the background makes the audience feel like they need to know more about the city. The city is quite large and overlooked. With the addition of the slow camera movement, the film wants viewers to really think about the city. It also makes us wonder why it is so important if it is shown for such a long time. The music from the start makes viewers feel intrigued and interested. The music sounds mysterious and a bit haunting which gives a glimpse of the mystery genre. It also seems a bit eerie and ghostly from the woman’s singing. In addition, at the very start there is a fade-in to immediately show the background. Throughout the opening, there are multiple zoom-ins and zoom-outs of the place to make watchers focus on what is shown. Towards the end, the audience can see the streets, people walking, and cars moving. This shows that the city is more busy than inactive. At the very end, two people are talking to a person who appears to be a tour guide. They are in a dark-looking alley which also hints at the mystery genre. The camera angles throughout the opening make viewers concentrate on what is being displayed in the background as well as the names and titles.  

Title Design Research: Se7evn

Another movie we looked at was a movie named “Se7ven”. I found this movie off the website of “WatchtheTitles.” The movie showed four main titles, one displaying the studios, one displaying the acting, one for the producers and the last one being all the main crew workers who developed the script, directors. For example, studios like “New Line Cinema” were shown. Some images that are prioritized are images that are clues or “hints” to what to uncover. Connotations that follow these images are ones of suspense and mystery. Since they are working on a police case you can tell they are trying to uncover something, so it provides like a mysterious connotation of unknowingness. The film automatically gives us this feel from the crossing out of clues from the police case and makes it known to the audience that they are trying to uncover something or someone. The film also uses this eerie music to continue to pursue feelings of mystery and provides a feeling of fearing the unknown and that we as the audience should fear what we do not know. The movie makes use of the overlapping of scenes to make it look like they have been trying to solve this mystery for hours. They also use well known case-solving tropes such as connecting photos together, flipping through pages to make it seem like they are trying to solve this mystery. It also seems like they are placing clips of what the main antagonist is doing to hook mystery lovers into finding out why. The technology available was used to the maximum potential. They constantly overlap takes on top of each other and use jump cuts to jump from title to title. They also implement scenes that set up the story to keep the watcher invested so they do not feel like they miss something important. They also used implemented music to keep the watcher on the edge of their seat and they used distortion of the music to keep up the suspense and theme. They used extreme close ups to show the case file and what the antagonist was doing. This technology helped keep the attention of the audience. Without technology I doubt that they would keep the attention and the title sequence would keep the audience intrigued by what was going on. The movie's opening titles keep the audience hooked through its technology usage and its suspense.  

Title Design Research : Gone Girl

 As a muse for a title design, we looked at the film “Gone Girl.” In the beginning of the title scene, there were 2 main credits. These included the studio, “20th Century Fox” and “Regency Enterprises”, the producer’s name. As the sequence continues, an ominous voice over is heard. This is to install fear in the audience, video visuals include an overhead shot of a woman as we continue to hear the man speak about murdering his wife. This camera angle is used to make the woman appear out of control. Following that visual, a black screen is shown crediting the actors one by one, and the title “Gone Girl” follows appearing on a clip of a lake, either early morning or at night fall. This creates an eerie sense of danger or uncomfortableness. The sequence also includes mysterious whistling in the background. This is to let the audience feel the same emotions as the characters might, unknowingness and fear. This music choice can also help to place fear or nervousness in the audience. As the title fades away, we see clips of an abandoned town, small, empty shops, and run-down homes that would have been nice at one point. Here, we can read small credits such as screenplay, makeup, and camera work. There are certain props and elements in this title sequence that make it feel mysterious. For instance, the mist on the ground and the overrun, or abandoned buildings make you wonder why everyone is gone. Following this creepy montage, we see a man standing in his driveway, staring into the distance. He appears frightened, and then suddenly walks towards his house. This attributes to the mysterious vibe because it pulls you in and gets you interested. Some editing factors are the word on the bottom of the screen in this clip. It says “June 5th, the day of”. This wording makes you want more and makes you wonder what happened on this day. This would appeal to teens and younger adults due to the frightening nature and the “R” rating. We got the title sequence and information from the website ‘WatchTheTitles.’ 

Title Website Research

 The first website we are looking at for examples for our title designs is called ‘Watch the titles’. The website from the first glance the website did not really look like it would be a contender for research for our title. However, as I scrolled farther down, the website was highly organized as I continued to keep scrolling through it. At the bottom of the website, they had diverse types of title categories and would allow us to neatly sort through all the diverse types of titles for our specific genre. They also have selections from different studies and designers, but you could also search for other specific movies. This would be a useful feature for searching up specific movies that are made in our specific genre, or in specific studios that are known for our genre. However, one thing that may be detrimental to our search for title designs would be that they do not really have too many movies from my first scroll through. I think for us to be fully rounded for title design research we need a website with lots of references. I do think that it is organized and able to navigate easily. Overall, I think that this website will be extremely helpful for our research on title designs. 

The next website that me and my group are look at is called ‘ArtoftheTitle.’ This website almost immediately dissatisfied us with how It looked. This was the home page, it did not really have a lot on it and unlike the other one, it did not have diverse types of design titles. However, I did also immediately notice the search bar, drop down boxes with different title sequences and studios. We also liked the simplicity of it and how it was easy to navigate. Further looking through the website the diverse types of titles can be searched through easily through filters. It also has the same features allowing us to search through other specific designers and studios. After browsing through the unique features, I also noticed that it had more opening sequences on the home page. Which will be useful to us because we need to know many diverse types of design for our opening to be good. Overall, either one of these websites would be good for us to use as they both provide easy navigation and resources.