Watch the Titles

Hello! To better understand how and what the title markers do to make the opening sequence for a movie, my group and I went to the website www.watchthetitles.com. While trying to find a website to look at for our research on the opening titles we stubbled upon this website. On this website, you can find example titles from many different genres of films. Not only are there block buster films but there are also video games, student projects and tv shows. Along with this array of example films, this website offers interviews with the creators of the different films offered on the website. The opening and its titles are very important. The opening titles set the mood for the whole movie. For our project my group and I needed to do some research on the opening titles for our genre, horror films. While on this website my group and I watched an array of the opening titles of different horror films. While watching the titles we've come to notice a few things. When watching a couple of the films we noticed that the titles didn't often take up a lot of time and are usually short while also giving a creepy, eerie tone to the movie. This is usually done by the editing of the titles and the sounds used in the opening and throughout the movie.The sound is often an eerie, unsetting sound that helps create the tone of the movie. This website was very helpful for our research on the opening titles for horror movie.

American Psycho Title Sequence

For this next part of our project we were instructed to research an example film of our genre.Then research what they did for the opening titles of the film. One of the example films we choose is the movie American Psycho. Directed by Marry Harron, made in 2000, this horror film told a story of  a wealthy New York City investment banking executive that had an alter ego that had a psychotic urge for killing. The reason we chose this film was because the opening of this horror film has great images that makes the audiences think about whats happening.
1. How many titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film?
       While watching the movie American Psycho, my group and I watched and notice thirty opening titles. These titles went from the beginning to 04:26 minutes in the movie.
2. What images are prioritized in the opening sequence?
       In the first part of the movie sequence, it shows what looks to be drops of blood dripping onto a white background. A few sends later we soon find out the substance that looks like blood is actually a red sauce that is being poured onto a dinner dish. Along with the "blood" the camera shows a big, sharp knife that swing up to then chop a big piece of meat. The sequence then continues to show what seems to be a normal group of men, then only to show the main character yelling in a psychotic why to a bartender in a loud and crowded bar.
3. What connotations do the images carry?
      The images that were shown in the opening sequence of this movie made the audience think that the red sauce was blood and that in the knife scene someone was probably going to stab someone. The images gave a feeling of surprise when the audience finds out the images were not what they seemed. The image of the main character shows how easily he can turn his psychotic alter ego on and off.
4.How is genre reinforced though symbolic and technical codes from the outset?
     The purpose of horror movies is to scare and to bring the feeling of fear into the audience. This film used the visuals of the "blood", the knife and the scene of the "American psycho" yelling at the bartender to bring the feeling of fear int the audiences. These scenes in the opening sequence gave an unsettling and eerie feeling to the beginning of the movie. The red sauce symbolized blood. When the audiences saw the red substance it reminded them of blood.
5. How does the film establish an enigma from the outset?
      The film established an enigma from the outset by not establishing any specific characters or the plot. The film makers didn’t explain who the group of men were and where they were in the opening. The eerie scene when the main character yelling at the bartender created a tense and eerie feeling to the opening of the movie. This makes the audience entriged in the movie, ensuring the audience will watch the movie.
6.What strategies are used to ensure the film appeals to its targeted audience?
     Film makers will use many different tactics to ensure their films appeal to its targeted audiences. When people watch horror movies, they usually want scary and eerie aspects in their movies. The film makers use this and make sure to add these aspects into the title sequences to grab the audiences’ eye.
7. How has technology been used effectively?
      Technology has been used effectively by using technology to create the image of “blood” in the opening titles. Along with the CGI the editors also used technology for the eerie music that played in the background while the titles were rolling. All of these techniques come together to help reinforce the genre of horror in the film.

Insidious Title Sequence

    Each movie has its own title sequence in the beginning to show the credits and most of the time particular tactics and designs to help build the story of the movie. My group was told to look at a few examples of title sequences and research them. The first one I chose to do was the title sequence from Insidious. There were 23 titles displayed during the opening sequence of this film. Images that are prioritized in the opening are all black and white location pictures such as an empty hallway, street, parking lot, or trees. All of these have a negative connotation and give off an extremely creepy, scary, and mysterious mood. The genre of horror is reinforced through the symbolic and technical codes of this through several ways. The main purpose of horror is to scare and spook the audience and by using the uncomfortable and eerie images that the creators imputed is very likely to have an effect on the audience in the way a horror film should. The titles are also in red text that slowly fade out of the screen which adds to the scary feeling being projected to the audience. The viewer may see the red as creepy because of the association of red and blood, which would seem fitting for a horror film. This film establishes an enigma from the outset because it doesn't show any specific characters or setting or any sense of plot, only imagery to set the mood. This could get the audience hooked and interested in watching more. They target their audience in this way. If someone is going to watch a horror movie it is obvious they like creepy crawling situations that freak them out and most likely like a little mystery so that's exactly what the title sequence creators incorporated. The technology has been used effectively by using technology to alter the lighting to low and put in shadows and also adding in filters of black and white. Not only that but also with the technology that was used to put in the frightening background music adds a great deal of eeriness to the mood. The transitions had lots of fade in and outs which in a way prolongs the imagery and adds a scary feeling because it seems like the subjects are being drawn out. All of these techniques are chosen for a reason and are very effective in reinforcing the genre of horror into the film .

Art of the title

Hello! In order to get more information on the opening titles of movies, my group and I went to the website www.artofthetitle.com. At this website, you can find information on titles from all types of films from documentaries to feature films. With this website, you can also get summaries of films along with interviews with the cast and crew of the film. The opening titles of a film are very important because they set up the tone of the film and they are the audiences first impressions of the movie. The reason my group and I had to visit this website was because we need to research title sequences for our project. We watched a variety of horror movie openings and we noticed a couple of things. The first thing that we noticed is that all of the titles that we watched had an unsettling tone to them. The titles are usually displayed on a black screen but sometimes images or scenes will flash on the screen that will help to tell the story. For all of the titles, music was playing and helped to heighten the creepy and disturbing atmosphere of the film. I learned that the titles should be relatively short and should not take up too much time. Another thing that my group and I noticed is that the opening titles seem to be displayed in a specific order. The first title that would show up was usually the main cast but sometimes the main title would be the director and the name of the movie. After the cast, the titles for make-up and sound would be shown. After them, the producers and the movie company that helped to create the film was displayed. And most of the time, if it wasn’t shown in the beginning, the writer and director of the film would show up followed by the title of the name of the film. Using this website showed me what a proper horror movie opening title sequence should look like.

Genre research ; A quiet place

  My group and I have been watching recent horror films to better understand this particular genre. One of the films that we watched was the 2018 horror film The quiet place. Directed by John Krasinski, the quiet place follows a family that must live in silence to avoid the creatures that hunt by sound. We chose this movie for this project because this movie was one of the highest grossing horror films bring in $340.9 million in the box office. While watching this film we noticed a big variety of camera angles shots and movements. the camera angles that we caught was a lot of eye level angles, high angles, and low angles. This movie also has a lot of camera shots like medium shot, medium shot, close ups, aerial shots and over the shoulder shots. The movements that were used in the film were pan, flash pans, tracking shot, and zooms. The quiet place also had a very interesting mid en scene which can be shown through the abbreviation C.L.A.M.P.S. C for the costumes was fairly normal. Most of the characters were humans that wore the cloths related to the time period that they were in. The only out of the ordinary costumes were the ones the actors who were playing the monsters wore. L for lighting, the light in the movie was fairly dark even when it was supposed to be the day time which gave the movie an eerie feeling. A for actors, the acting in the movie was incredible. The role which they had to play was not easy. They didn’t have a lot of dialogue which meant that they had to act through their face, they had to really emphasize the emotions in their face to make up for not having any dialogue. M for makeup, the makeup was very light, normal looking makeup. Except for the makeup used to create the mysterious monsters. The makeup was a lot of effects makeup to create the terrifying monsters. P for props, this film had very little props but the props it did have included the red lights that were strung around the farm that the family lived at which flashed red when the mother of the family went into labor. Another important prop was the hearing aid that the daughter of the family had. This prop was very important because at the end of the movie the mother and daughter found out that the hearing aid created a frequency that killed the monsters. S for setting, the setting of the movie took place at a farm in the country side, a forest, and a store. The main sound used in this film was some Ambient sounds like the waterfall and leaves crunching. Also a little bit of dialogue between the characters. The movie had a lot of common horror movie elements but also had a lot of original elements of its own. The movie was a horror film that was silent the whole run time but also provoked a sense of fear with the actions and facial expressions used by the actors. An element of the movie that I did enjoy was the plot of the movie and how well the actors played their roles without a lot of dialogue. The concept of the movie was such a new concept and the movie didn’t really rely on jump scares. The elements I didn’t like was how dark it was all the time. The darkness did give a eerie feeling to it but it can be overwhelming when you watch it for 2 to 3 hours. Overall, this movie was a great horror movie and it really showed us how to make a horror genre film.

Genre Research; Get Out

Hello in order to get a better understanding of our genre, my group and I watched and evaluated some horror films. One of the movies my group and I researched was the 2017 horror movie Get Out. Directed by Jordan Peele, Get Out is a Mystery/ Thriller that follows a young man who goes to meets his girlfriend’s family for the first time, but finds out that there something really wrong about her family. We chose this movie because it was one of the best selling movies in 2017. We noticed that there are some camera angles and shots, and movement throughout the film. For angles, there were eye level angles, high and low angles. This movie also used a variety of movement such as tracking shot, tilts, and pans. The shots throughout the movie were three shots, long shots, and medium shots. Throughout the the movie there were also closeup and some two-shots. There were also over the shoulder shots being used throughout the movie.
    The movie Get Out has a very unique mis en scene. The costumes in this movie were very casual clothing, the only unusual costumes were on the house keepers who wore what looked like old clothing for decades ago. The lighting in the movie started out light and towards the middle to end of the movie it started to turn darker. The acting was really good in the movie they really did a good job with acting. There was some really impactful moments in the movie that the actors portrayed. The makeup in the movie was pretty plain, the only time the makeup was over the top was when someone got hurt and they had to make a mark to show that someone got hurt. The injuries in this movie were very intense and gruesome. The overall makeup in the film was very good and the injuries looked so real it was amazing. There were many props in this movie but one of the main one was the house which everything went down. The settings were pretty basic, it took place at an old town and at a house. The settings were nothing crazy or out of the ordinary. The main sound in the movie was dialogue, but there were some other sounds too. A couple of non digestive sounds were in the movie too like clicking of the mouth which went on in the movie a lot. In some of the scenes there was occasionally no sound at all and that helped with the tension. This movie followed a lot of the common horror movie elements. The movie followed  the element which an evil force is in the family and they make it look like there normal but there not. The movie also had a lot of tension and violence throughout the movie. Get Out did an amazing job at making people feel fear and creating a unsettling tone. An element I really enjoyed was that the movie had a consistent tone throughout the movie. I also liked how scary and original this movie was. The elements that I didn’t really enjoy was the parts that had violence in it. There was a fair amount of violence in this movie but it’s ok because I closed my eyes. Overall this movie was really good and I would recommend this movie.

Genre research; Hereditary

  In order to get a better understanding of the genre that we chose, my group and I watched and evaluated a couple of horror films. One of movies that my group and I researched for our project was the 2018 horror movie Hereditary. Directed by Ari Aster, Hereditary follows a grieving family being haunted by tragic and disturbing occurrences. The reason we chose this movie was because Hereditary was one of the highest grossing horror movies of 2018 and was one of A24s most successful films. We noticed a variety of camera shots, angles, and movements throughout the film. For angles, there were eye-level angles, low and high angles, and oblique angles. The movie also used a variety of movements such as zooms, tracking shots, tilts and pans. The shots used in the movie were long shots, three shots and medium shots. Many times, throughout the film were close-ups and two shots used. Over the shoulder shots were used quite often during conversation scenes.
Hereditary also had a very interesting mis en scene. The costumes were regular street clothes and didn’t really stand out too much. The lighting in the movie started out bright in the beginning of the movie because many of the scenes were shot in the daytime but by the final act, the lighting was very dark, and it was almost hard to see. The acting was great in the movie. There were some very great and impactful monologues and the actors and actresses did a very good job at showing their grief. The make-up in the film was pretty plain and didn’t make much of an impact unless an injury was shown. The injuries that were created in this film were very bloody and gruesome. The make-up was also very well done and the injuries that were displayed in the film looked very real. There were many props used throughout the movie, the most important props were the dollhouses that the main protagonist creates that help to tell part of the story and a journal that helped to establish a malevolent entity. The settings were pretty basic. The movie took place in a house, a high school, a treehouse, and a couple of other less relevant locations such as a craft store. The main sound used in the film was dialogue but there were also a couple of other sounds. The movie had an amazing original score which made for a more impactful ending. A couple of non-diegetic sounds played throughout the movie such as the quiet mouth clicking noise that would occasionally be played as well as the sound of injuries being created or messed with. There was incidental music and ambient music played and, in some scenes, there was no sound at all which helped to heighten tensions.
The movie followed many of the common horror movie elements but also had a lot of original elements of its own. The movie followed the element of an evil force arriving to a family. The movie also had a fair amount of violence and tension throughout its run-time. Hereditary did an excellent job at provoking fear and creating an unsettling tone. An element of the movie that I did enjoy was the that the film kept a consistent tone throughout its runtime and I really liked that the movie didn’t and rely on jump-scares to create the feeling of fear and relied on the actual plot to create that feeling. The elements that I didn’t like in the movie was the violence. There was a lot of violence in the movie which is okay but a lot of it seemed unnecessary and prolonged. Overall, I think that this was a great horror movie and helped me to understand how to make a movie fall into the horror genre.