3 key frames

This is a photo of my 3 key frames of my opening sequence

Napalm research

Considering my main charecter is called Drake Napalm, and his special power is that of being able to fire incendiary fluids much like Spiderman can fire webs. i thought it a good idea to learn a bit about Napalm and incendiary fluids/gels. To do this i looked it up on Wikipedia, this is what i found:
Napalm is the name given to any of a number of flammable liquids used in warfare, often jellied gasoline. Napalm is actually the thickener in such liquids, which when mixed with gasoline makes a sticky incendiary gel. Developed by the U.S. in World War II by a team of Harvard chemists led by Louis Fieser, its name is a portmanteau of the names of its original ingredients, coprecipitated aluminium salts of naphthenic and palmitic acids. These were added to the flammable substance to cause it to gel.

Although Napalm is technically the name of the thickener of the incendiary fluid, it is much more convinient and catchy to use it as the name of the product.

Essential elements for a good opening sequence

A good film opening should include: 

Build up

A number of different shots

A taste of the rest of the film

Appropriate logo and style

Don't let it drag out

A good relative soundtrack 

Brief 1 research blade 2

http://www.artofthetitle.com/2008/03/31/blade-ii-2002/

This is a link to the opening titles of Blade 2. Blade 2 is not only an excellent film but has really good effective opening titles. The titles explain the movie and the story so far but also don't give too much away, it leaves you desperate to carry on watching and find out exactly what happens. there are a lot of quick cuts with clips showing you who Whistler is and how blade got to where he is and what he must do now, hunt and find whistler. The actual credits in the opening are very appropriate, they are clear and obvious, in red over a predominantly dark background. But aren't too in your face or intrusive. With only 3 shots of credits it's fairly minimalist with text, the 3 shots reading...

NEW LINE CINEMA

presents

AN AMEN RA FILMS PRODUCTION

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

IMAGINARY FORCES

film pitch + tagline

25 word re-written film pitch.
Drake's a boring 25 year old accountant, but when duty calls his suit burns to reveal Drake Napalm. with the power to torch his enemys.


Tagline.

an acountant X a very volatile substance

Film breif idea switch

Although i originally chose my idea for breif 3, after further consideration and feedback from from others, i've decided my idea for breif 1 is better, my idea being Drake Napalm, acountant by day, criminal napalming super geek by night.

Gregg Araki

After spending alot of time searching for Independant films with young protagonists i found that alot of films i had looked at had been directed by Gregg Araki, i found Mysterious Skin, Doom Generation, The Living End and Nowhere. Although Gregg seems to have a some what adult mind set when it comes to his films, the majority of the ones ive looked at seem to fit the outline of breif 3.

Film breif 3 research

Here i have posted the opening credits to the 2004 critically acclaimed indie film 'Mysterious Skin'. Mysterious skin is a film about two boys in Kansas that were both sexually abused by their baseball coach aged 8. How the delt with the dilemma differently, one blanked it out, the other embraced it. Later they meet aged 18 and realise they weren't being singled out in ones case or loved in the others, just abused.

Breif 3 research

When searching for films that fit the regulations of breif 3 i found many different possibilitys, however, i could find very few clips with opening title credits. These are some of the films i found that fit breif 3.

Millions-A film about 7 year old damein that finds a bag of money and goes about trying to give it to charitys and the needy etc.

Daywatch- russian film about the battle between night and day, Yegor has the power to save either one of the two, depending on which he chooses.

Somers Town- Somers Town is about a young boy who runs away from home and goes to London, quickly befriending a young immigrant, and they both fall in love with a French waitress

Brick- Brendan finds his girlfriend dead due to mysterious circumstances and devotes his time to finding out what happend to her.

Film breif 3 research

Although not an independant film, Spiderman fits the breif of being a young protagonist fairly well, Toby Maguire playing the part of Peter Parker aka Spiderman uses the powers he has obtained to stop evil and therefore become a hero.

these are the opening credits to the film


Columbia pictures presents
a Marvel enterprises / laura ziskin production
SPIDER - MAN

Staring
Toby Maguire
Willem Dafoe
Kirsten Dunst
James Franco
Cliff Robertson
Rosemary Harris
J.K. Simmons
Gerry Becker
Bill Nunn
Jack Betts
Stanley Anderson
Ron Perkins

Casting By
Francine Maisler and Lynn Kressel

Co-Producer
Grant Curtis

Music by
Danny Elfman

Costumes Designed by
James Acheson

Visual Effects Designed by
John Dykstra. Asc

Edited by
Bob Murawski
Arthur Coburn. A.C.E.

Production Designer
Neil Spisak

Director of Photography
Don Burgess. ASC

Exectutive Producers
Avi Arad
Stan Lee

Produced by
Laura Ziskin
Ian Bryce

Based on the Marvel Comic Book By
Stan Lee abd Steve Ditko

Screenplay by
David Koepp

Directed by
Sam Raimi

Long Road logo animation

We were given an image of the long road logo, i then had to cut out each section of the logo into separate layers in photoshop. Once that was done i exported the layers from photoshop, imported them into After effects. When i had the separate layers in After Effects i was able to animate then into a clip as you can see above.

Comments on my 1st brief

Loz

really funny idea could be a good film lots of big explosion and some kind of guy trying to stop him sound like a good film to see if u want to see loads of explosion in many different ways (must make each explosion creative and different because people will get bored)


Philippa
I found the idea very entertaining, it was quite funny and would do very well as a comic. Great comic idea.


Matt
Sweet idea, could be very funny.


Tara
I found sam's ideas very creative, using comedy to pull people in. I enjoyed all of his ideas but thought perhaps number 1 was the best.

Film Breif ideas

Breif 1) Drake Napalm, Accountant by day, criminal napalming super geek by night.

Breif 2) Woman geting married, maid of honour dies on the way to the wedding in car crash, comes back to haunt her with the fact she'd been sleeping with the Groom.

Breif 3) 16 year old guys quest to get to a party with mental things getting in his way. (skins X harold and kumar)

Breif 4) i couldnt really think of anything, maybe some kind of a ROMCOM?

K+D logo analysis

K+D aka Kuntzel + Deygas are the animation masterminds behind such things as the opening credits to Catch me if you can, The pink panther and Agathe Cléry. I find their work incredible as it must take so much time. Having spent around an hour creating a 5 second long logo myself, creating 2, 3 minutes of animated footage like that, even as pros must take alot of time and dedication. The logo (above) is very baisic but effective and some what magestic.

Production logo rough cut

This is my rough production logo. i was originally going to use the name 'Brake Through productions' and have the name burst through a wall. But after spending almost 2 hours trying to construct a brick with the right dimensions i was close to throwing my mac out of the window. I then decided to make something a little more achievable, baring in mind this is the first real project i have done in After Effects.

I plan to put sound over the clip also. i would have done tonight but couldn't find and suitable clips.

Hurtwood house thriller analysis

This clip is called unsound mind, its an As level thriller opening by students from Hurtwood house sixth form college. The clip is very abstract and trippy, i like this about it, the flickering of the picture and the Dub steppy music compliment each other well and the titles integrate effectivly, they don't intrude on anything but are clear enough to read. The effect of the clips of people swirling out is implemented wel.

T2-61 Evaluation/marking

Blog - I thought the blog entries for this project were all pretty good, an apropriate mix of analysis, screen shots, practice shoots and visuals. I did however think that they would of benifited from more posts, theres three people in their group and only 20 odd posts.

Video - The more i watchthis video, the more i like it and understand why they've done things and the more i think things work. I'm still not keen on the 1st 10 seconds, the shot of the computer screen is confusing, looks like a floating screen not a stalker in a dark room. I like the CCTV effect they use for a few seconds but the fade out of it ruins it a bit. the video was well cut and switches between stalker and stalkie revlevantly. I dont likethe fairly non-descript sound track.

DreamWorks logo

The film Catch me if you can is presented by DreamWorks Pictures (logo seen above) DreamWorks are the company behind films such as Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator, The Ring and loads more. they have been putting films on our screens since 1996.

I Find the DreamWorks logo particularly interesting becuase its fairly complex compared to Warner Brothers simple big WB in the medal type shape. But also easy on the eye and simple to understand. Occasionally DreamWorks adapt the logo to suit movie, for example the opening to small soldiers they had sillohettes of the soldiers climb the boy on the moons fishing line and attack him.

title sequence

For my film opening sequence i chose the credits of Catch Me If You Can, a film depicting the life of Frank Abagnale Jr.

The Lowreyesque credits were created by Florence Deygas and Olivier Kuntzel or K+D. K+D are a duet of visual artists. Kuntzel comes from a design and communication background and Deygas from classical animation movie and fashion illustration.

I love this movie and the opening credits pay a real credit to the film. The sequence flows seemlessly from one clip to the next, each relating to keypoints in the film linking through the elongation of letters in the titles from top to bottom of the screen.

K+D also did alternative title sequences for the pink panther movie and bbc 4s the desk

Continuity task

This is my continuity task video, the purpose of this clip is to show that i under stand the rules of continuity when filming. Rules such as the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot.

This clip is my edit of the stock footage & sound we were given. The task was to learn more about using final cut by editing the stock footage & sound together.

I decided to do my best to cut the video footage in time with the beat in the music. The music starts calm and quiet so i put a fairly mundane video clip of a reflective building with the start of the credits slowly fading in. the background then fades out to leave the white text on the black background. Then the music fades out and brakes into a breif guitar solo. the titles then continue to fly from different dirrections at double the time of the snare drum in the music. i only maneged to put titles this far as alot of the time i spent getting the right video clips to match the timing of the music. had i had more time i would of continued this pattern.