VODCAST 8 Deconstruction of Tess of D'Urbervilles

...

...
A deconstruction of the opening of Tess of D'Urbevilles, we analyse the cinematography (Camera/ lighting), Mise-en-scene and sound.

AUDIENCE Analysis

Over the course of our AS Media Studies year we have received countless amounts of audience feedbackvarying from verbal, written and online feedback.

Overall they were positive, they liked a few things here and there however, the feedback we have received has been more than appreciative. I mean just look at our first few sample scenes, they are 100% different to our final cut. A recurring problem for us was trying to increase the pacing in the film openingbut in the end I think we managed pretty well. From the first rough cut to the last, the whole group thought "oh we can cut a second or two there," but had it not been for feedback saying, "This pace needs to increase dramatically," our film opening would not have been as good as it is now.

We have received feedback from ages ranging from 14-22 and have also received a bit of feedback from older adults. I admit, some of the feedback we received was vague and we couldn't really use it. However this gave us an insight as to how these people of these ages were analyzing our "media" and we could build upon that instead. This also links into Stuart Hall's preferred reading theory as, especially for the title feedback, we received a lot stating which one looked "most horror" or "most cool." when we as creators wanted the most fitting for the genre. This means the audience who analysed the title fonts applied it to the knowledge they had on slashers to choose their preferred ones. This came from our target audiencemeaning we had to take a lot of it into account when choosing the final fonts for our titles. They would not have been what they are now, if it weren't for this feedback as our group had a slight discussion about this too.

Re-Pitch

...

Re Pitch/ review from ChristianStricks

...

In this re-pitch we discuss how we have gotten audience feedback, updates to our blogs and about BBFC ratings.

TITLES film "Austin Powers"

TITLE
Number of people/company names in titles: 27
Start/end time of main titles: 0:15-0:27, 1:35-5:07
Running time of main titles: 12 seconds for first set of titles, 3 minutes and 32 seconds
Titles in order using exact text: 

Capella International/ KC Medien Presents
In Association with New Line Cinema
A Moving Pictures/Eric's Boy Production
Mike Myers
Elizabeth Hurley
Michael York
Mimi Rogers
Robert Wagner 
Seth Green 
Fabiana Udenio 
Mindy Sterling
Paul Dillon
Charles Napier
Casting by John Papsidera
Music by George S. Clinton
Costumes Designed by Deena Appel
Editor Debra Neil-Fisher 
Production Designer Cynthia Charette
Director of Photography Peter Deming 

Executive Producers Eric McLeod 
                                      Claire Rudnick Polstein

Produced by Suzanne Todd
                        Demi Moore
                        Jennifer Todd
                        Mike Myers

Written by Mike Myers
Directed by Jay Roach




TITLES ANALYSIS 1: THE COMPANIES
There was 5 companies who were titled and these are the companies that help present and produce the film. Whereas the rest of the titles are people who either help create the mise -en-scene or the main stars/actors and actresses in the movie. These companies help finance the film and help get it to the cinema's/produce or publish the film.
TITLES ANALYSIS 2: ROLES
There was 13 specific roles given in the titles. All the actors were just listed, however the stars have their own listing without other names as they     on screen to make sure the audience knows who the stars are and who the cast are in this film. The people who helped create costumes, music etc. have been listed individually because of their importance to creating this film. Each one of them also have their role written above their name in a smaller font and in a different colour as well. This ensures the audience knows the difference between the names and the actual roles that those people have in creating the movie. Mike Meyers is mentioned more than once because he is one of the actors, the writer and one of the producers in the film. He is the most important person who has contributed to the film.

TITLES ANALYSIS 3: GENRE/NARRATIVE CONNOTATIONS
The titles are a serif font which contrasts every other aspect of the font which all signify comedy and seems to be targeted towards a younger audience. The serif font targets a older audience. The font is a very bubbly font which connotes that film genre is going to be a comedy and not a very serious film. The font also has the text starting with capital letters but then using lower case letters after the first letter, many films have just capital letters. The colours are very bright and there is a large variety of colours, again this takes the seriousness all out of the film. The titles are also on screen when the central protagonist is dancing around. Al these factors help anchor the main genre of this film. Which is  comedy. The font is very child friendly, but it is not made that way to attract a very young audience, because the BBFC rating is 15 and that is way to high for children to watch. This could be considered a binary opposite for films rated 15, for they normally have a more serious and dark font and colours no matter if its a comedy or not. The colours and bubble font seems to be chosen to suggest an immature comedy film. There is also no animation to the titles. 

Possible Influences 

We will most likely use this style in our titles as well, with around 20 of them, crediting the right people and actors/actresses in the same order. 

ANALYSIS Film Opening '71

'71

Yann Demange (2014)

BBFC 15, MPAA Rated: R

Running time of the opening sequence: 3:17

Budget: £8M

UK/US/World Box Office: £1.2M, $900K, £2.1M

Theatrical distribution in 12 countries 

 

Production co's:  Warp
Production financing:   Film4; Screen Yorkshire; Crab Apple Films
UK, US theatrical distributors: StudioCanal

LINKS: IMDB; RottenTomatoes (Users 81%, Critics 96%); BoxOfficeMojo; The-Numbers; Wiki; Official site/page; Facebook.

TRAILER
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-BaKfl1Ms4

...

TITLES

Number of people/company names in titles: 3

Start/end time of main titles: 0:00- 0:40

Running time of main titles: 40 seconds

The three titles are:

Studiocanal

The main distributor of the film is studiocanal. This is also the first opening of the film therefor the most important company involved with the distribution of the film 

Film4

This is one of the commissioners for the movie and is one of the main ones in the UK. They "present" the film alongside BFI

BFI

This is the company that helped finance productions of the movie

All of the titles have no music or sound playing in the background which can get the audience to hold their breathe waiting in anticipation of what is about to happen.

TITLES ANALYSIS: ROLES

Only two specific roles were given, with 6 companies being mentioned. The 6 companies are Film4, BFI, Screen Yorkshire, Creative Scotland, Crab Apple Films and Warp Films. Crab Apple and Warp films are the main companies who have produced the film alongside the other 4 companies  

TITLES ANALYSIS 3: GENRE/NARRATIVE CONNOTATIONS

The font for the titles are a mix of large and small text like in a billing block to only highlight the important information which is the companies being shown. The font is serif and is only capital letters. The logo of warp is also shown in the title. The font denotes that the genre is not a comedy but more of a thriller. It suggests a serious tone to the movie. The titles are all on a black background, with the non diegetic sound of two men boxing in the background and other men cheering them on to really get the sense for what type of film '71 is. After the titles are done the sound of boxing continues and creates an audio bridge for about 10 seconds then it cuts to the first shot which is set in a military base with the main protagonist boxing another man and having the other soldiers cheer on.

FIRST SHOT + THE PROTAGONIST

The very first shot is a close up of two characters boxing each other panning to the right. It is obvious they are boxing because of the gloves, the shirts being drenched in sweet and the blood on their faces and mouth guards.The miss-en-scene helps anchor what exactly is going on. The opening sets the mood straight away. It is an unusual opening for there is no establishing shot. We can tell who the main protagonist is. For during the boxing sequence the camera was always focused using a shallow field of focus on him and after the sequence was done, the camera tracks the man to using close up and medium shots to show his emotion and start to make us sympathise with him. There is no voiceover for it is not needed to establish the main protagonist.  

ADDITIONAL POINTS

The establishing shot can be argued to be after the boxing sequence where there is an extreme long shot of the soldiers running down a hill as practice for the army. However this is more known as a master shot.

The army/ military camp continues to be shown as the soldiers are all practicing and training to be a soldier. The last shot of the opening is of the soldiers practicing shooting and the cut to the main film is with a gunshot and then as soon as the gunshot is heard the screen goes black, then the scene changes and the plot begins to develop.

VODCAST 1: on past coursework

...

My first vodcast where I deconstruct a past coursework film opening.

MISC 5 things I have learnt about coursework

1. There is a lot of research and planning needed to go into the film opening we are going to create
2. There will be many theories applied throughout the film opening and many new media terms to be learnt
3. I have be to be very creative to come up with film opening ideas that meat all the requirements
4. It will be hard to meat all the requirements in just a 2 minute film opening
5. There will be new software that I have to get used to using to create my film opening.

MISC Thoughs on past coursework film openings

Some of the past coursework film openings have been very creative and have been edited in a suitable style. Like Sophie and Bronwen with the "Pizza Productions" Where the title slowly appears after the pizza is removed and eaten. The "scribble pictures" is also written in scribbles but then the clip is reversed. All of this is part of Stuart Hall preferred readings theory. Which works really well for all the film openings. All of the film openings have credited the Director, Stars and Editor in the film opening as well, and maybe even the costume designer or sound editor. The film openings have a set a very clear tone, genre and theme to the movie. The film opening "Liar"  also has many sound effects to it to create a humouristic element but also to get the audience more involved with the opening. All in all, all of the film openings have the companies involved playing first then they set the tone, genre and scene for the upcoming movie.