Title Research: “The Final Destination (2009)”

My group and I watched the title sequence of, “The Final Destination” (2009) from the Watch of the Titles website. There are twenty titles in the opening sequence. In the opening sequence, the images that are prioritized are skeletons. The opening continues to zoom into the skeleton, expressing a close up almost every time. The connotation the images carry are negative. As seen in the opening, the skeleton is constantly being killed. After the title is shown, the camera begins to descend until it is at a low angle. From there, a steel beam comes down onto the camera in a point of view shot of the skeleton. Then, a close up is shown of the skeleton with the metal beam through its skull. The horror genre is reinforced through the constant use of extremely fast transitions from one scene to another along with the constant gore of the opening sequence. The film establishes an enigma when it shows the first death in the sequence. This death along with every other death leaves the audience guessing. The strategies used to ensure the film appeals to its target audience are the constant uses of zooms, pans, tilts, along with dim lighting, bright lighting, and eerie music. The technology was used effectively through the constant camera angles, allowing the opening to be scarier. For example, within the first 10 seconds of the opening, a beam is hitting the audience through the POV of the skeleton. Other Camera angles include: Close-ups, high angles, medium shots, extreme close-ups, pans, tilts, flash pans, flash tilts, and zoom-ins.

Title Research: “Dead Silence (2007)”

My group and I watched the title sequence of, “Dead Silence” (2007) from the Art of the Title website. There are twenty-three titles displayed in the opening sequence. Images that are prioritized are images of the creepy doll the older women are creating. All the sketches, drawings, and pictures are all shown while she creates her “perfect doll”. Connotation images used to carry throughout the movie are the images of the doll being made along with the scary music because it makes the audience question, what is wrong with that doll and what will happen with the doll? Horror is reinforced in this opening sequence through symbolic and technical codes from the outset because of the dark lighting, the strange angles of the creepy doll, and the dark red titles. The film establishes an enigma from the outset by showing a woman putting a creepy doll together. The strategies used to ensure the target audience is eerie music, dark lighting, candles, creepy drawings, tools, and worst of all, the scary ventriloquist doll. The technology has been used effectively because from the establishing spot, wide shots, high angles, dutch angle, long shots, point of view, pan, extreme close up, zoom, cross-cutting, shot/reverse shot, jump cuts, and fade out. 

Title Research: “American Horror Story: Freak Show (2014)”

My group and I watched the title sequence of, “American Horror Story: Freak Show” (2014) from the Art of the Title website. There are 14 titles displayed during the opening sequences of the film. The images that are prioritized in the opening sequence are the movie scenes in order. The first image is the production the film used and the following titles are the actors or people names who helped create the film. The images carry a negative connotation by making the audience feel weird and spooked. The genre, horror, was reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset, they are the animations from the strange-looking humans, the way the clowns look, and creepy circus props. The film establishes an enigma from the outset by giving the strange images that make the audience feel a certain way. The strategies that are used to ensure the film appeals to the target audience by creating mysterious and weird images. The technology has been used effectively due to the use of stop-motion and CGI sequences. There are establishing shots, wide shots, high/low angles, slow and fast transitions, point of view, handheld, action matches, and carnival-infused themes for sound.

Title Research: Watch the Titles Website

This is the homepage of the website: www.watchthetitles.com

My group and I are researching another website, “Watch the Titles”. It is dedicated to the art of title design and its creators. Started in 2006, the recently renewed website features a growing collection of over 200 title sequences and behind-the-scenes content. It offers a glimpse into the people, ideas and processes behind their film. This website has many features that made browsing through the website easier. They have interviews with directors and those who can explain the movie and how it was made. Those same people are the ones who experienced the film. It is important to understand what all of this means and what the significance is throughout the film. These are guidelines for the audience and for people who need their own guides in making their own movie sequences. This is a good website for us to see examples of creating and editing a film’s titles, just by seeing other examples of people's movie sequences benefits. This website also has interviews, feature films, TV shows, event titles, examples of student projects, video game sequences, and even other features to make people understand how to properly edit. It is very helpful. With all of their options, all you do is click the feature and a list of sequences pop up. There are plenty of title sequence examples for each genre. Not to mention, each of them is around 2 minutes. For ours, we watched a couple to help us make the titles look scary and creepy appear on the screen like theirs.

Title Research: Art of the Title Website

This is the homepage of the website: www.artofthetitle.com

My group and I are researching the website, “Art of the Title”. It is an online publication dedicated to title sequence design, television, movies, and video game industries. The website is both an educational and historical resource and a contemporary publication, focusing on the creative process behind the design of title sequences. We want to know why certain names come before and after others. Luckily, this website has many features and ways to learn all about title sequences. The sequences are separated by designers and studios. They are also separated by genres. If you are looking for your genre, they have an entire section just for that. Along with that, the title sequences from a range of old to new movies. Each of them is around 2 minutes. So, in order to make your own title sequence, you need to know how titles and the sequence are made. For the titles in our final task, we were planning to design the titles to match the genre, horror. Before researching this website, we planned to make the titles look scary and creepy appear on the screen. This website will help us understand the different designs for titles sequences, due to all the good examples of popular horror film sequences. This will guide our group into making a good title sequence for the final task. 

Genre Research: Doctor Sleep

C.A.M.S: Camera Angles, Movements, and Shots-
A common shot used in Doctor Sleep is establishing shots. Possibly, this shot was mostly used due to the fact that Doctor Sleep is a spin-off of the movie The Shining. Being the case, the director may want the viewers to recall locations from The Shining by using establishing shots. Wide Shot, High Angles, Tracking Shots, Medium Long Shot, Extreme Close Up, Twp Shot, Three Shot and Close Up.

C.L.A.M.P.S-
Costumes: Jack's signature maroon cord jacket, Grady twin gowns, Rose’s top hat, and baseball outfit. For the majority, the actors were wearing casual clothing.
Lighting: Dim and Dark Lighting to set an ominous, creepy tone.
Actors: The actors all have superpowers and are all supernatural beings.
Makeup: light makeup, blood, and scars
Props: Rose’s hat, baseball glove, and RV
Setting: Rehab Room, Apartment, Overlook Hotel

Editing- Cross-cutting from scene to scene to highlight the character’s powers was a helpful editing technique in Doctor Sleep. Cutaways and inserts were common in the movie to dramatize scenes. Fade out and fade-ins were also common.

Common Sound- Diegetic sounds, Non-Diegetic sound, Ambient Music, Incidental Music, and Scores.

Elements We Liked & Disliked- Elements that we liked were the jump scares and the scenes where the characters would fly around the globe. We also liked the shootout scene in the forest because we believed that it was a great way to incorporate action into a horror film. However, the elements which we disliked was how graphic the murder scenes were.

Genre Research: "American Psycho"

Our group researched, watched, and analyzed the horror film, American Psycho. This movie is about Patrick Batesman who is a wealthy, well educated 27 years old. The thing about him is that he lives a second life as a gruesome serial killer by night. He hides his psychopathic ego from his co-workers, friends, and family. Soon it begins to unravel as the next victim becomes Paul Allen. Soon Patrick Bateman is going to hit rock bottom with his OCD thoughts of murder. 

Common Camera Angles:

The extreme close-ups are used obviously to emphasize on specific details that the directors wants us to see like Bateman’s face and expressions opening a window to his mind or Allen’s body to shows that he is for sure dead, or the case of the pill shot to let the audience know that Patrick is under a pill treatment. The other shots are used depending on the importance of Allen to appear on the shot or not because when Bateman is making the most insightful pint of his speech is not necessary to see Allen. And finally, the angles used are very obvious, mostly high angles for Paul to make the audience feel that he is weak and fragile and low angles for Bateman to show his authority and power. 

CLAMPS:

The costume was Patrick's usual suit and tie that never seems to change as much. 

In the living room, the lighting is soft but bright. In the bathroom, the lighting is dark and weary when he enters. The makeup being used was the fake blood on Allen and cuts.

The prop was the knife that Patrick Batesman used to kill Allen at the time. This scene is set in Patrick Bateman’s apartment in two places, the living room, and the bathroom. In the living room, we see that everything is mostly black and white, the walls and the pictures on it with a sense of OCD as everything is set perfectly. Nothing out of order. In the living room, we see that all the furniture is covered with white blankets. In the place where Allen has seated the floor is covered with newspapers as his grave. 

Common Sounds in the movie are creepy and eerie music, along with the sound of Freddy Krueger scratching his claws throughout the movie.

Common Editing used was jump cuts, cutaway, eye-line match, fade, and cuts.

Elements of The Genre are the dark, creepy, scary places, disfigurement, dismemberment, jump scares, suspense (anticipation), spooky music and blood and gore.

Elements That I Like were the jump scares, spooky music, and the suspense throughout the movie.

Elements That Did Not Appeal To Me were the overacting, the dark because I could not see exactly everything, and the disfigurement was really gross and had a lot of gore.