Opening Thriller Sequence Research: Any Human Heart

3) Any Human Heart: http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/any-human-heart/

This title sequence uses silhouetted shapes and animation to illustrate a man taking a walk on what looks like a journey. 

The first shot denotes a man silhouetted shape walking through a thin alley. The text then is positioned to the left of the alleyway. The font of the text looks like it has been typed on a typewriter which correlates with the soundtrack as the non-diegetic track is instrumental but sounds mysterious. Both the font and soundtrack hint to the iconography of detectives.

 In the same shot, the alley widens and the text along side it moves to the left of the screen and eventually disappears out of sight. Meanwhile, the shadow of the character widens and eventually reveals a new title credit. The way that the shapes change and reveal new text/imagery is enticing to the audience therefore engaging them.

The colours in the sequence are mostly browns, creams and reds. These colours connote seriousness and a formal tone. However the red also links to the title "Any Human Heart" as a heart is usually associated with the colour red. Whilst, the texture (a post-production edit) gives the sequence a leather effect, which could also add to the idea of a formal tone.

The piece continues with the shapes flowing into new formations (without the use of cuts). This means that the elements are always moving, including the text. The text is also placed in different areas each time to make the audience look all around the frame and makes it more visually interesting. Contrasting colours are used for the text for the easy readability, but once a shape overlaps the text, in some cases the text changes colour too as shown in the images above. 

In my opinion this title sequence easily engages the audience into watching the title sequence and hints at a plot line that consists of a man travelling to the city, or a mystery/detective theme being shown?

Opening Thriller Sequence Research: The Conjuring

1) The Conjuring (2013): http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-conjuring/

The first shot of the title denotes two old black and white photos of what seems like a family. The text on top reads "The Perron Family". 

A sans serif font is used to make the reading of the text easier for the viewer and the colour of the text is black to contrast the white background. The text size varies in the shot where the less important word "the" is smaller than the rest of the text to give significance to the other 'more important' text.

In this shot, the black and white theme in the title sequence continues but a different editing effect is used. Here the credits are 'laid' onto the page by using a wipe/post-production effect to make it look as if a page of a book was turning. This is effective as it catches the audiences attention to the new text appearing on the frame.

In this shot, a piece of paper slides into frame in a turning motion from the left. The changing of movement in the title sequence engages the audience and makes the piece visually exciting. The ongoing use of photos, books and newspapers suggests that an event in the film may have been on the news and effecting the families in the photos. The photos are also old suggesting that the events took place in the past.

This shot uses a combination of a dissolve and focus pull to change from one credit, to the next. Both the dissolve and focus pull have a fast pace to add tension, and a sense of action.

In the title sequence, a non-diegetic soundtrack is used throughout to add atmosphere to the sequence. The soundtrack is orchestral with added foleys positioned in time with action in the title sequence. The soundtrack also has various crescendos and decrescendos to add suspense the piece.

In my opinion the title sequence is successful in engaging the audience before the film starts, and hints at potential outcomes in the story-line. 

Opening Thriller Sequence Research: Red Lights

2) Red Lights (2012) http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/red-lights/

The colours in this title sequence are mostly black and white, but some red has been included in some shots to show a contrast. It also obviously anchors to the title that connotes 'Red Lights'.

The first shot starts off with a high pitched, screeching non-diegetic soundtrack followed by an instrumental piece with a fast tempo. The initial screeching sound may be used to shock the audience and engage their attention.

The beginning of the shot also uses a letter 'flying' into the frame from the bottom left corner and assembling the name 'Cillian Murphy'. The text is accompanied by semi-transparent circles which quickly decrease in size and then fade out. These circles look like light which again refers to the title of the film.



The circles appearing and the magnification of letters repeats in the next shot, but once the letters have assembled, a silhouette of two hands appears behind the text for a fraction of a second. The image being silhouetted adds enigma, as the audience do not know whose hands are displayed in the image.

Mean while, the non-diegetic soundtrack continues, parallel to the imagery as there are 'booms/thumps' when new text is displayed to add to the atmosphere of the title sequence. 

In the shot showing the title of the film, the extra colour red is used to add contrast and significance to the shot. The red/white circles also stay in the frame for longer than the previous shots which again adds significance.
The soundtrack in this shot continues to build crescendo but at the end of the shot, a fast decrescendo is present.

The text throughout the title sequence is a sans serif font and is similar to the text in 'The Conjuring'. This font is easy the read therefore making it suitable to an audience with different abilities of eyesight.

Editing: Colour Correction

Today we continued to work on editing our thriller sequence. We specifically focused on colour correcting some shots that appeared yellow. Here is a before and after shot of the character Natalies hands, notice how the colour no longer has a yellowy tone to it.

Audience Feedback On Our Title Name: White Collar Complex

We asked some of our target audeince, females 15-24 year olds, about what they thought of the name of our film, this is there feedback!

Overall we are happy with the feedback as it gave connotations of a collar of clothing, prison and enigma all key things for our movie. Many also said the mystery of the title would intice them to come and see the film to find out more, which is obviously our main target as well as conveying the thriller genre!

Filming Process

In the planning and preparation for our filming we had get actors and locations, along with permissions for these locations.

This is a few of the texts exchanged between us and the actors for the day.
 (In the texts before we sent the actors a link to the blog and their character and costume profile)

Unfortunately due to Starbucks being busy, on the day of filming, we were unable to film there. As a result of this, I had to create a homemade cafe in my room. As it was my house, we did not need to seek permission for this location. This is how it turned out:

It was a nightmare to create a realistic looking cafe, however I think it turned out okay replicating a little independant cafe in the Brighton Lanes. Unfortunately as it was my room it gave us limited space to move in when filming, here is a short outtake to demonstrate the state of my room!

Editing Continued

The first problem we encounter whilst beginning to edit, it whilst labelling and editing we came across a mobile phone interrupt. As we use a phone ringing in our sequence the sound has been disturbed by this.

To overcome this, we luckily can just delete the sound. We can use a foley sound effect of the phone ringing played with other successful sound we took that day, such as the chopping of the vegetables.