2. Finding inspiration

For this lesson we looked at multiple openings from movies, tv series and music videos which conveyed a similar message to what we aim to achieve in our film opening.

Ideas and Inspiration:

American Horror Story: Hotel Main title sequence (Tv series)

• Editing: Faster towards the end, glitching effect to reflect the character’s instability/frustration of her old appearance

• Opening starts with a shot zooming into the spyhole then inside the room to create suspense ( suggests that the character is secretive and mysterious)
• Dark/Dim Lighting (enigmatic)

Dexter title sequence (Tv Series)

• Extreme close-up

• Blurred face of character in mirror (behind the head shot) - creates suspense 
• Allows audience to focus on her hair (white hairs to show that she is old)
• The music will be in a different tone and less upbeat as we are trying to convey a different atmosphere.

The Babadook title sequence (film)

• Plain font (easy for audience to read)
• Slow, fade in (then could speed up towards to end as the character becomes exasperated)
• Monotones (black and white) - focus on detail/textures not colour

Melanie Matinez - Mrs. Potato Head (Music Video)

• Cutting/peeling of skin (blood/gore suggests violence)
• Puffy/Bloated face
• Dark/Dim lighting (cool tones - depression)

HANNIBAL : Hannibal Lecter feeds Krendler his last meal (Tv Series)

• Slicing of the skin
• The non-diegetic music
• Dark lighting

1. Initial ideas and Sequence

Title : Limerence

We chose the title "Limerence: because of its meaning and association of obsessing over another person. The character we wish to create is infatuated with the beauty of other young women so we thought it would be suitable to use "Limerence" as our title.

Our initial ideas:

1. Wall full of faces of beautiful celebrities
2. panning of camera from wall/around the room to the entrance of toilet
3. close up of woman in front of mirror
4. plucks white hair - exaggerated diegetic sound
5. touches skin (aged, flaky and with wrinkles) while heavy breathing
6. sudden fast faced camera work reflecting her emotions
7. walks to desk
8. close up of vinyl needle playing (focused on vinyl but blurred background can see woman walking towards desk)
9. woman starts cutting pieces of magazine faces
10. zoom in of rusted scissors and messy workplace
11. shot of her back bending over desk hunched over (can see spine and aged skin)
12. slowly pan to show finished work of complete collage
13. zoom out to see the whole room + entrance of toilet
14. dead body can be seen hanging out of bathtub with curtains
15. camera focuses on dead body

Conversation In Thrillers

In this lesson we began to analyse a scene from movie training day, two character with different personalities meet.

How is meaning created using micro-elements in the clip?

Throughout this clip the use of the overall theme of the shift in power can be seen through the use of the four micro-elements: Cinematography, Editing, Mis-en-scene and Sound.

In the first clip we can see the a city landscape, this sets the location and lets the audience know that the film is likely to be set in the city centre, a busy location. The next shot that we see is Jake walking into the restaurant to meet Alonzo. This is shown by a panning of the camera from the left to the right of the store.

In this panning we see a row of full people eating at the counter, the lighting in this area is brighter, this shows the liveliness of the area with contrasts with where Alonzo and Jake sits. The location in the store where the two policeman (Jake and Alonzo) provides a dimmer lighting and is somewhat isolated from others, as very few people were around them. This conveys an idea of how Alonzo likes his privacy as he is seen in the booth where Jake later joins him.

A glimpse of Alonzo’s personality is shown through the mis-en-scene of his clothing as he wears and all black outfit with shiny silver jewellery, this is rather uncommon appearance of a policeman. The colour black is often associated with power, formality, death and mystery. The way in which also sits suggests that he is the dominant character in this situation. This is reinforced by the way he is accessorised with a chain necklace and earrings which is unusual for a police officer. During the conversation Alonzo remains in eye contact with Jake, however Jake appear to be avoiding the eye contact as he fidgets and constantly looks to a different direction.

Thriller Conventions

Zodiac Composition

Experimenting with photoshop on the background:


To achieve this:

Original:

Final Outcome:

Credit Structure : Panic Room Opening Sequence

Credits in order:

1. Studio
• Columbia Picture
2. Production Company
• Hofflund/Polone
• Indelible Pictures
3. Actors/Actresses
• Jodie Foster   
• Forest Whitaker   
• Dwight Yoakum   
• Jared Leto   
4. Film title
5. Supporting  Casts
• Kristen Stewart
• Ann Magnuson
• Ian Buchanan
• Patrick Bauchau
• Paul Schulze
6. Technical Creative Staff
• Casting : Larry Mayfield
• Costume Designer : Michael Kaplan
• Music : Howard Shore
• Film Edition : James Haywood, Angus Wall
• Production Design : Arthur Max
• Cinematography : Conrad W. Hall, Darius Yhondji
7. Producers
• Gavin Polone
•  Judy Hofflund
• David Koepp
• Cean Chaffin
8. Writer
• David Koepp
9. Director 
• David Fincher

Extra Research on the making of opening credit sequence:

Information from an interview : http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/panic-room/

"What technology did you use to make this sequence?

Jeff: Lightwave for 3D, Digital Fusion for compositing and Photoshop for everything else. We also used various in-house software plugins as well."

"The Manhattan cityscape is obviously a hell of a canvas to work with. Did you have to scout locations in advance or did you already have what you needed thanks to storyboards or previz?

William: Since most of the movie takes place inside, in the dead of night, Fincher really wanted to bookend the film with short sequences outside, during the day, to give the movie a touch of lightness and some New York City flavour.
He wanted to clearly set that location, so there was some initial location stuff around, just through the course of scouting the entire film. That’s what we based some of our concept frames on."

"The goal was to present the titles so the viewer accepted them as a part of the landscape, not an additional element to the space." —JEFF BARNES

Picture Mill’s presentation book for the opening of The Panic Room — as it was then called — featuring concept images of modeled 3D typography painted into location stills, examples of typography in New York City, and a map with a proposed path from the south of Manhattan to Central Park.

Sub-genre mini film

As we explored into the sub-genres of thriller, me Eye and May were paired up to create a mini film based on a sub-genre of thriller in our preference. We began to edit our footage, however our film was unfinished due to time constraints.

Here is a part of our footage made into a gif.

Our Psychological thriller plot was based on a women being  mentally unstable. As she prepares a banana for a smoothie,  her mind switches between the her cutting and blending her own fingers. She is in her own head until a friend calls her name and everything returns to normal.