Example of target audience

I have made up a profile for our intended target audience.

Women:

Age Classification

There are Seven different age classifications that the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has set. These seven are:


'U' (Universal- Suitable for everyone): A 'U' film should be suitable for audiences aged 4 years and over. All 'U' films should be set within a positive moral framework and should offer reassuring counterbalances to any violence, threat or terror.

Discrimination- There should be no discriminatory language or behaviour unless clearly disapproved of.

Drugs- There should be no reference to illegal drugs or drug misuse unless they are infrequent and innocuous. Also if it is for a clear educational purpose only or anti-drug message suitable for young children.

Horror- Scary sequences should be mild, brief and unlikely to cause undue anxiety to young children. The outcome should be reassuring.

Imitable Behaviour- There should be no potential behaviour which young children are likely to copy. Also there should be no emphasis on realistic or easily accessible weapons.

Language- Infrequent use only of very mild bad language.

Nudity- Occasional natural nudity, with no sexual context.

Sex- Mild sexual behaviour (for example, kissing) and references only (for example, 'making love').

Theme- While problematic themes may be present, their treatment must be sensitive and appropriate for young children.

Violence- There should be mild violence only or occasional mild threat or menace only.

'PG' (Parental Guidance- General viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children): Children of any age unaccompanied may watch a 'PG' film. A 'PG' film should not disturb a child aged eight or older. It is up to the parent to decide whether the content may upset their younger or more sensitive children.

Discrimination- Discriminatory language or behaviour is unlikely to be acceptable unless clearly disapproved of or in an educational or historical context. Discrimination by a character with which children can readily identify is unlikely to be acceptable.

Drugs- References to illegal drugs or drug misuse must be innocuous or must carry a suitable anti-drug message.

Horror- Frightening sequences should not be prolonged or intense. Fantasy settings may be a mitigating factor.

Imitable Behaviour- There should be no detail of potentially dangerous behaviour which young children are likely to copy. Also there should be no glamorisation of realistic or easily accessible weapons.

Language- Mild bad language only is allowed.

Nudity- Natural nudity is allowed but must not have sexual context.

Sex- Sexual activity may be implied but should be discreet and infrequent. There should be mild sex references and innuendo only.

Theme- Where more serious issues are featured (for example, domestic violence) nothing in their treatment should condone unacceptable behaviour.

Violence- Moderate violence, without detail, may be allowed, if justified by its context (for example, history, comedy or fantasy).

'12A'/ '12' (Suitable for 12 years and over): It is the exact same criteria that classifies both '12A' and '12'. These categories are awarded where the material is suitable for those aged 12 and over. Children under the age of 12 may find these catagories upsetting or their parents may feel it is unsuitable for them.

The '12A' catagory exists for cinema films only. No one younger than the age of 12 can see a '12A' film in a cinema unless accompanied by an adult.

The '12' catagory for video works only. No one yonger than the age of 12 can buy or rent a '12' rated vidio work.

Grimaldi Storyboard

Synopsis!

Our first scene begins in a girl’s handbag from the point of view of her clown key-ring. She gets home and places the clown key ring on her computer. As she is typing the eyes of the clown starts to move from side to side. She notices it then jumps and throws it off the computer and it falls on the floor. She thinks it’s her mind playing tricks on her and goes downstairs to have a little break from her work. She goes back upstairs to continue typing on her computer and sees it sitting on her computer once again. More agitated now she picks it off the computer desk and throws it into the bin. She goes to bed and a new day begins as she wakes up (long shot from the clown’s point of view) (over the shoulder shot of the clown). She raises her head up and is horrified to find the clown there again and begins to scream wildly.

For parts of this title opening sequence it will be filmed from the point of view of the clown.

Roles and Responsibilities

After our second group meeting myself (Sam), Moe, Farah and Taylor have each allocated each other job roles and responsibilities. We have given each other roles that is best person to do the job. The picture below is a list of our roles and responsibilities, it has not got all of our groups tasks on it, as most of the tasks we done as a group.

Group Roles:

Team Meeting

3/11/2010-
Attendants of meeting: Myself (Sam), Moe, Taylor and Farah.

Before the actual meeting me (Sam) and Farah made an agenda of what had to be discussed and sorted out at this meeting.
AGENDA:

• Synopsis
• Storyboard - Draw up (Who is going to draw it?)
• Locations/Props (Where is it going to be filmed, what is needed to film it?)
• Who will be our target audience?
• Characters (Who are the characters in it and who will play them?) 
• What our roles within the group are?

15:46pm: The main thing we had to get sorted out in this meeting was our synopsis. We had to make sure we knew what was going to happen through our title opening sequence. As a group we all discussed possible ideas for the synopsis, as we was doing this Moe was taking down bullet points so we can remember our ideas. Once we all finished giving our ideas, we tried to merge them all together. Also as we were giving our ideas we also came up with shots, movements and actions that can go into our title opening sequence. Whilst talking about our synopsis we managed to talk about different editing techniques which we could use. As we want the toy clowns eyes to move I think it was important we sorted out how this could be done.

16:19pm: While we was discussing ideas for our synopsis, we realised that some of the ideas in it was really good. Therefore we thought it would be best if we took them ideas and actually put them in our title opening sequence. We all felt that this will help us to make out title opening sequence more dramatic/tense and would really connect to our intended target audience.  

16:34pm: We all then went on to watch the title opening sequence from Carousel. This shows the ability to use a clown to create a dramatic scene along with a scene that the audience and connect with and makes them want to watch on. This title opening sequence also showed us that we can use characters, in this case a clown, to create a happy or evil vibe. When thinking about a clown character you usually think straight away the clown is happy, bubbly and fun. In recent years, films are changing these clown perceptions and making them bad and evil. This is working really well as you feel you should be able to trust a clown, this is making the audience glued to the screen. Also a clown costume can be used as a great disguise in some areas, For example, Bank Robberies.

14:50pm: At the end of this meeting someone came up with a really good idea that was to film most of this title opening sequence from the prospectus of the clown. We thought that this was a great way to interact with the audience and bring them into it.

Clown Based Thriller

As a group we have finally agreed on our final idea which our title opening sequence shall be based on. Our storyline will be a clown based thriller. The group decided to go along with my original idea but they wanted to change it a little bit, which I was more than happy with. Taylor had a good couple of ideas to improve the storyline. He told us about the film IT and how it is similar to our idea. We all agreed to analyze the film's title opening sequence and if we needed inspiration we could use that, but one thing all of us never wanted was to copy it. We wanted our idea and title opening sequence to be fresh and original. Farah then said it would be a good idea if we turned a toy key-ring clown into a life size clown. We all thought that this was a good idea but we just had trouble of how we would create it. Farah then spoke to our teacher Nina about the idea and how we could get this idea to work. Nina said it could be easy to do and she also explained how it could be a really good title opening sequence as it is a really good idea. What we must do is keep it simple rather than complicate things, I learned this from something I read about Hitchcock a little while ago. This made all of us feel happy that we have got a really good idea and now we are all feeling a lot more confident about making this a success. Now we have established an idea we have to write the synopsis to this idea along with drawing up a story board. This is something we shall be discussing in our next meeting. Overall at this present time I am really have with my group as we are all contributing and doing all the work that needs to be done.

   

Mind Map and Thriller Ideas

Within one of our meetings we wrote down a lot of possible ideas for our Thriller Title Opening Sequence. The foolowing is mind map of the ideas which we had came up with:

Our first meeting

1/11/2010- This was our first official discussion of our title opening sequence, with all team members there.
Attendants of the meeting: Myself (Sam), Moe, Taylor and Farah.

10:34am: Within this meeting we had to discuss possible ideas we had for this visiual/audio product. As Moe was not in the previous lesson I (Sam) updated him what our previous discussion was. We all gave good ideas of a storyline, which we put into a spider diagram. Overall we came up with three possible ideas. They were:

    1) A clown based thriller. This storyline would be- There are some children trapped in a school and are killed one by one. The murderer is an evil clown but none of the pupils actually know it is the clown killing them. All they can hear is an evil clown laugh. I thought of this idea as I have seen something like this done before and it was a massive success. Also I saw the film IT and took inspiration from it.

    2) A love triangle based thriller. The storyline- This involves three friends who have known each other from a young age and two of them have suddenly developed a more on-depth relationship between them. This ends up with these two presenting their feelings for one another to their final friend. The final friend is not happy at all, it soon becomes clear that this person has secret feelings for one of these characters and will therefore cause a dramatic twist.
   
    3) A cyber death. The storyline- This involves a young women who through depression, meets a young male on the internet. He then leads her to her down fall.

10:42am: After further discussion we felt that our best idea would be a clown based thriller. We felt our original storyline could be better. Therefore we changed it, (the new storyline can be seen in my mind map), and we thought about having a little toy clown become life size and then plays with people's minds.

10:55am: We made plans that both as individuals and a group we was all on the same page and understood what was happening. We have also all agreed to be as focused and to put in as much work as possible. We all want good grades and therefore know we all have to do what has to be done. I feel our group is very hard working and have no doubts that we are going to make our title opening sequence successful.         

 

My mood slide

My mood slide

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Analysis of Snatch

Snatch is a 2000 British gangster comedy film written and directed by Guy Ritchie, and featuring an all star cast. Set in the London criminal underworld, the film deals with two intertwined plots: one dealing with the search for a stolen diamond, the other with a small-time boxing promoter named Turkish (Jason Statham) who finds himself under the thumb of a ruthless gangster known as Brick Top (Alan Ford).
From the beginning the open title sequence is fast paced. We first meet the main characters sitting in the back of a van wearing what seem to be Jewish outfits which could be a disguise. As they begin to take off their fake facial hair and hats one of the characters brings out what seems to be a rather large diamond. This diamond could be of huge importance as the plot unfolds. The diamond then gets bigger and the camera turns around the name of the film appears on the middle of the diamond in a bold white font which is underlined and has a full stop. At this point we are introduced to some of the character and their names.

The first one is Cousin Avi who is holding a magnifying glass to the diamond we had just seen which makes the audience wonder what the relevance of this diamond is and that cousin Avi is checking to see if its real also it shows a process by which the diamond was possibly stolen in the first scene and then given to cousin Avi (blue background with white stars at the top and bottom of his of name). Cousin Avi places the diamond in the safe and on the other side of the safe we see the next person the diamond changes hands with in this criminal process and its SOL( dark green background with his name in white bold font and underlined) His picture then turns into an animation . When he places his hand in the safe he brings out some money making the audience think that the diamond has been sold for money. As Sol throws the money it lands on the desk of Mickey (dark green background with bold white font and a star at the bottom).

Mickey throws a bag full of gold to Vinnie who catches it (Vinnie’s picture is in sepia and we can see him holding the gold and the bag). The camera then flips around and we are introduced to (Franky four fingers. The gold which Vinnie held in his hand becomes a gold watch that ends up on a poker table. The camera freezes on Franky and we see his image in black and white. We can now clearly see why he is called Franky four fingers as he is missing a finger and is also holding up what seems to be a good hand of cards, queen, kings etc. As Franky places his hands of card the shot changes and we meet a character called Turkish who has picked up a hand of cards. The title sequence flows very well and each section helps to introduce us to all the characters and what also tell us what part they may play in the film. The sequence lasts for about 1minute 30 seconds and we are introduced to the main cast. The last character we meet is Brick Top, he seems like a really tough guy who hammers a guy in the face, we see the man’s teeth broken which then turns into the diamond and the original scene the title sequence opened with. It seems as if it is an effective way of storytelling and showing us what will happen rather than what has happened and the audience knows what they are watching but they do not know how it will end up. We can already tell who the villain is Brick Top.

The type of camera work used is medium shot, close up shot and extreme close up shot. All these shots have different meanings and when the audience watches it they are all significant such as the close up of the props, diamonds, jewellery, hammers, the shots where we are introduced to the characters and it’s easy for us to identify the characters.

The medium shot is used to show the character and the location he/she is around. For example at the beginning it shows four men in the back of a van holding a diamond, this gives us an indication to a robbery.

The soundtrack is very jazzy and upbeat it braces the audience for the ride ahead. This type of music is very sharp and fast. The editing is smooth and cuts from one clip to another making a continuous and fluid transition. Editing methods such as cross dissolve helped it make the process smoother. The props used in the sequence are a Diamond, weapons such as a hammer etc, gold, and cards. The costumes the characters wear in the first scene in the van are "Jewish Outfits". The rest wear suits and casual clothing apart from the gym scene where the character is dressed in gym clothes.

Saul Bass

                                                      Saul Bass

Saul Bass was an American graphic designer and Academy award-winning filmmaker. Bass is best known for his picture title sequences. In fact Saul Bass was a genius at it, he took title sequences to a whole new level. Bass worked for some of the greatest Hollywood filmmakers ever, these include the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger and Martin Scorsese.

Saul Bass was born in May 8, 1920, in New York City. He studied at the Art student's league in Manhattan.  He began his time in Hollywood doing print work for film ads, until he collaborated with filmmaker Otto Preminger to design the film poster for his 1954 film Carmen Jones. Preminger was so impressed with Bass’s work that he asked him to produce the title sequence as well. This was when Bass first saw the opportunity to create something more than a title sequence, but to create something which would ultimately enhance the experience of the audience and contribute to the mood and the theme of the movie within the opening moments. Bass was one of the first to realize the creative potential of the opening and closing credits of a movie. So in 1955 Bass created his first title sequence which was for Otto Preminger's, The man with the Golden Arm. This was a massive success which shot Bass to fame and all the best filmmakers wanted him to create their title sequences. 

A great quote from Saul Bass himself - "My initial thoughts about what a title can do was to set mood and the prime underlying core of the film's story, to express the story in some metaphorical way. I saw the title as a way of conditioning the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would already have an emotional resonance with it."

Saul Bass worked write up until the year before he sadly past away in April 1996 at the age of 75. His last title sequence was for Martin Scorsese's film, Casino, in 1995. The title sequence below is for Casino and Saul Bass's last ever title sequence. I am also going to analyze it and prove how much of genius Saul Bass was.

     

Creating a Thriller

In the view of Alfred Hitchcock:

The Audience:

When creating a thriller it is so important that everything in the screenplay is done for the audience. There is nothing more important than to show how each scene is going to affect the viewer. The content must engage them along with reeling them in. The characters should be used to tease the viewer and pull them along wanting more. 

 

Frame of emotion:

It is well known that emotion is the ultimate goal of each scene. Emotion can be in the form of fear, laughter, surprise, sadness, boredom, anger etc. In a scene at first you should consider where to place the camera as you should already know what emotion you want the audience to experience. Emotion come directly for the actors eyes, you can  the intensity of the emotion by placing th camera close or far away form those eyes. a close up will feel the screen up with emotion, and pulling away to a wide angle shot will dissipate the emotion. A sudden cut from wide to close-up will give the audience a sudden surprise. Sometimes a strange angle above the actor will heighten the dramatic meaning.

Camera is not the camera:
Let the camera become a real person. The camera should take on human qualities and roam around looking for something suspicious. This allows the audience feel that they are involved in uncovering the story. Scenes can often begin by panning a room showing close-ups of objects that explain plot elements. This method goes back to Hitchcock's beginnings in silent films. Without sound, film makers had to create ways to tell the story visually in a succession of images and ideas. You should always use the camera as more than just a camera.

Dialogue means nothing:
A good way to pull the audience into a characters secret world is to get the character to be pre-occupied with something during a dialogue scene (Their eyes could be distracted while the other person doesn't notice). Alfred Hitchcock said "People don't always express their inner thoughts to one another. A conversation may be quite trivial, but often the eyes will reveal what a person thinks or needs".

Keep the story simple:

If the story complicated, confusing or requires a lot memorization from the audience, you are never going to get suspense out of it. The key to creating that raw Hitchcock energy is by using simplistic, linear stories that the audience can follow easily. Everything in the screenplay must be streamlined to offer maximum dramatic impact. Each scene should only include essential ingredients that make things gripping for the audience. An abstract story will bore the audience and that is why Hitchcock use to use crime stories with spies, assassinations along with people running from the police. These kinds of plots make it easy to play on fear, but are not mandatory for all movies.

Surprise and Twist:

Once you have got the audience into the story's gripping suspense, it should never end the way they expect. 'The bomb must never go off', lead the audience into one direction and then hit them with a surprise twist.  

 May cause MacGuffin:

The MacGuffin is the side effect of creating pure tension. When scenes are built around dramatic tension, it doesn't really matter what the story is about. If you have done your job properly, the audience will still be glued no matter what. You can use random plot devices known as the MacGuffin.  The MacGuffin is nothing! The only reason for the MacGuffin is to serve a pivotal reason for the suspense to occur. For Example in could be something as simple as government secrets.

What is a title opening sequence?

The title opening sequence is the method that cinematic films and television programmes present their title, key production and cast members. Also utilizing conceptual visuals and sound. The title sequence should not be confused with the opening credits, as this is usually nothing more than a series of superimposed text. In class we have been told to do some research on Soul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock. I will be uploading my research about them in due course.

What is a thriller?

A Thriller is a genre of literature, film and television. A thriller film uses tension, excitement and suspense. These are the main elements and are what differs a thriller to any other genre. Nearly all films today have sub-genres and thrillers are no different. Some thriller sub-genres can be: Crime (Oceans 11), Psychological (Phone Booth), Supernatural (What lies beneath) or Political (The Interpreter). The characteristics of a thriller usually have an atmosphere of murder, violence, menace and crime. The societies in thrillers are often portrayed as dark and edgy but they usually have a happy ending. Also thrillers love to endorse cliff hangers and plot twists. This is to thrill, excite and keep the audience at the edge of their seat, which the whole point of a thriller film.

Our Title opening sequence coursework.

We now finally know our group for this year's coursework. In my group it will be myself (Sam), Farah, Moe and Taylor. I have also received my coursework brief and I am now very excited about getting on with this project. We have to do a 2 minute (120 seconds) open title sequence for a thriller film. For me to prepare myself for this task I will be doing a lot of research. I am going to watch and analyze other thriller title opening sequences. This will help us to decide how our title opening sequence should look.

Preliminary Task

This is my preliminary Task:



Although this preliminary task does not look much now, I am sure it is going to help me out massively when I have to start my Title Opening Sequence project.