The BFI

I recently visited the British Film Institution in order to gather more research and information about titles and opening sequence. During my trip I learnt that opening sequences include a wide range of titles. Including directors, producers, casting and involve on average about 20 titles in every film opening. This was something that previous students didn't include, which inevitably lowered their grade by a lot. This has become a target and aim for me now to make sure there are plenty of accurate titles at the start of my opening sequence.

 Pete Fraser begun a presentation about the 5 aspects of opening sequences:

Genre

Narrative (enigma)

structure

atmosphere

character

We were shown 3 different title sequences all including a different genre, 'Dawn Of The Dead' being horror, 'Catch Me If You Can' being an action film and 'Napoleon Dynamite' being a comedy. With these we had to analyse each of the aspects and discover which of the 5 aspects were the most obvious. This was helpful as we began able to recognise the differences between each aspect, unravelling the difference in atmosphere which creates the genre.

Foley. Foley is a type of way to create new, non diegetic sounds in movies. Previous students have dealt with bad sound in their opening sequences, and as sound is 50% of the film, it decreased their grades by a fair amount. This use of foley in opening title sequences would emphasise particular movements or sounds within the film and help with generating a certain atmosphere.

This is an example of a student who got 50/60 marks for their opening sequence, I too will be aiming for a level 4 in my title sequence. The students gained high marks in their task because they included a wide range of titles in their opening sequence which where presented in an interesting way. This shows that the student held an understanding of the conventions on title sequences.
This opening sequence fits with the criteria as it includes a wide range of titles and the camera work used is varied and interesting. The lighting and sound work is good, however, the idea of the sequence is quite unoriginal, this could be what has  lost her a few marks in the making. I also think that the editing isn't perfect as, although the idea of titles was effective, the pausing on the names wasn't always smooth, which made the sequence flow not as well as it could have.

 

This is another example of a student who gained a level 4 for their opening sequence, however, this student gaining 59/60 marks, only dropping one mark overall. This is because the student included interesting and decent amounts of titles but also included an enigma which is a key aspect of title sequences. This student also used a variety of different camera shots in their work which also shows that they are capable of using the camera effectively.  

 

 These are scanned images of the tasks and activities that were shown on the trip. I found that each of the speeches were very helpful as they involved different techniques and advise which will come in handy when creating my opening title sequence

http://www.bfi.org.uk/ here is a link to the BFI's website. Here they give you more information about new films and what types of competitions and on goings are occurring within the institution.