A credit timeline can be described as a breakdown of the opening credits. Within it there is an idea off how may tittle cards have been used, in out points of audio and when text appears on the screen. This is very useful and can help a student to understand the way opening credits could be written and approximately how long they should be on screen. There is no particular order when title cards appear on screen, many films have it in different orders but there tends to be quite common titles one sees. Such as; Director, Actors, Producers, Executive Produces, Film Title, Editor, Costume Designer & Institution.
The pictures seen below are both Credit Timelines that i have created. The top one was created in class and it is based on the opening credits of 'Panic Room'. It is the first ever Credit timeline that i have created and it was not easy too understand at first but gradually it all came together. I understood the fact that the bottom lines resembles the in and out points of the background music and the top line represents the length of it. Around the lines we have title numbers which represent at what time the title cards come up on screen.
For homework we were told to create our own title card and the one towards the bottom is the one i created using powerpoint. It is based on the opening credits of 'Fast & Furious 6'. There were more title cards in 'Panic Room' but that just means that there were less names on screen even the fact that 'Fast & Furious 6' is longer. Regardless of that i can now fully say i am confident in creating Credit Timeline and i am sure i can do one without any assistance and with full understanding.
During the lesson we were told to get into groups of three and try to recreate the 'Anatomy Of A Murder' opening title sequence. To achieve this we had to use stop animation and edit it ourselves while trying our best to get it too look as close as the original. We aimed to have it at 12 fps (Frames Per Second) making it more simple to create.
One of the hardest things in this task was in fact to keep the camera still and have the cut outs placed in the right place at the right time. Apart form that, this was a very simple piece to create especially in the edit. I was able to add text and the background music with no problem what so ever. In editing we were told to try an get the duration to around about 20 seconds and it was difficult to get it just about right. Apart from that the editing was not very time consuming it was only getting the right duration that took some time.
In class we were told to create a presentation based around our favourite title seqeunce. Within it we had to contain; Conventions, Genre, Codes, Target Audience, Institution, Text & The Reason We Like It. Once the presentation was complete we where told to present it in front of the class. I based my favourite title sequence around Monsters Inc.
A theme can be described as being the underlay of a specific idea. It tends to act as support for the general idea of a specific piece of work, art or medium. The theme would mostly be displayed during the title sequence of a film, TV programme or video game, to give an idea to the audience.
There is a common theme going on through out the opening title sequence of dexter. One can connote that the whole theme of the show is blood. Blood is presented from the very beginning when the fly lands on his arm and he kills. This then persists right till the end with the grapefruit where the remains of it looks like blots of blood, due to the red colour that is presented within the fruit.
Not even that, we can judge themes based on Genre, Narrative and even Location. The location theme is presented in the EastEnders opening scene. as it begins the audience would see a water style animation then as it zooms out one can establish it as being a river. Towards the end people would be able to then understand that it is the River Thames, as it is one of the landmarks of London.
STYLES
A style tends to relate to a method or the aesthetics of a film of television programme, one can ever say that a style is quite symbolic. Yet when someone thinks of a style the main question that would arise is how is something created? This can be done through editing, camera angles or even the colour.
The video example used is from the film Superbad and the style it portrays is the old 70's look. The Mis-En-Scene is what really proves the style of this opening sequence. The sound, lighting and editing give it that 70's look. The sound is an old music track from the 70's it is very upbeat and even the actors are dancing in that very old disco style. The lighting used is very limited and the colour choices used are from that specific era, thus again giving it that look. Finally the editing this helped it too give that old style effect. There is much of a flickering effect used giving it that old TV style look, such as the white lines and the the space between each phosphor dots, giving it a limited PPI.
The main meaning of the preliminary task was to work in groups and create a short clip which demonstrated continuity, as well as; match on action, 180 degree rule and short,reverse shot. We were told for the clip to include someone walking through a door, walk across the room, sit down and exchange a few lines of dialogue. It was very difficult to create the clip as we were not allowed to break the 180 degree rule and considering the fact we just had learnt of it recently it seemed that we managed quite well. The continuity was not the best sadly. We looked at our footage and noticed that there was not a lot of time to cut in between clips during edit as the actor would of turned there head around or the camera would of stopped recording. Because of this clips were cut a bit to quickly or started to early thus no showing the best continuity results.
We can se through the two screen shots above that continuity is ruined. The first picture (on the right) is of one scene and the one to the left is directly after. It is noticeable that this is not continuos as one moment his hands are by his sides and the next he is fixing his blazer, this ruined the continuity effect.
From 0:42 when the shot reverse shot began there is still lack of continuity. It was really hard to edit the clips due to the fact that there was no gap between eh actors talking and the rolling of tape. Meaning as soon as the actors began talking it started recording, and when they stopped talking immediately the camera stopped recording; thus making it hard in the edit. There was some background noise at the start of the clip but that later was gone due to the rest of the clip taking place in a quiter room.
However overall i like what we as group have created. Since it was our fast task it seems to be done well and we have tried our best to apply are knowledge and stick to the 180 degree rule which through out the clip was not broken.
This is the first main part of are coursework as AS Media Students. We were told to get into groups and come up with a short film idea, with about 5 lines of dialogue and contain specific shots (180 degree rule, shot reverse shot & match on action) which would make up are preliminary task. The following is video is what was created.
The main concept of this started of as simply a basic board room discussion then the idea grew. It simply is off a man (working for MI5) who goes in a room to present secret evidence were then by he is killed. There is enigma present in this clip towards the end because there is a black screen, making the audience to think what has happened as they do not know.
