saul bass

Saul Bass

Saul Bass was an American director that was most famous for his title sequences in media. His most famous work was from 'The Man with a Golden Arm' by Otto Preminger's in 1995

Analyisis will be up soon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGnpJ_KdqZE
The title sequence is simple, made entirely of a plan black background, with white lines across the frame creating a cut out effect. The white against black makes a dramatic impact, perhaps giving the impression of a dramatic film.It creates an eerie effect, giving the sequence a tense mood from the beginning. Also, at first the lines appear to be random, with no sense or pattern to them, creating a confusing design that may confuse the audience and hints that the rest of the film may be strange and confusing.Right at the end of the sequence the lines blend to make an arm, showing that the lines are actually symbolising veins within someones arm, giving hints towards a character in the film whose arm is involved, generally connotated with the idea of injecting drugs into the veins.This instantly creates a darker mood and gives the impression that the whole film will have a slightly darker atmosphere.The soundscore for this sequence is highly contrasted to the images as it is quite an up beat jazzy piece. However, this could be quite ironic as it shows the way that a heroin addict feels as though they are happy and feels great when they are on the drugs, when in reality it is ruining them.


He also designed the title sequences for 'The Big Knife' 'The Seven Year Itch' 'Carmen Jones' 'Bette Davis' 'Attack'
 He created a cinematic revolution. When he created his title sequences, they weren't just the fist two minutes of a movie. He wanted a reaction out of his audience.He wanted to know people would feel something, that the first two minutes of the scene would set the tone of the film and plant the seed.



These are the simplistic logos that Saul Bass designed in a simplistic yet creative way.

My Evaluation 

Done by Priyanka which was good as it gives us different ways of openings comparing to Alfred Hitchcock and others, also gives us ideas on logos that we will need on the opening to our film so the audience gets an idea of who made the film and can relate this to the sort off genre we will be doing. Saul Bass also done title sequence which me and Priyanka will be seeing which ones are best and my evaluation on final destination ones is up on the blog. 

Continuity Editing Task First Cut problems and resolution 11/12/13

After we created the shot list and main idea for our short piece, we started to film it. However along the way we realised it was not as simple as it looked. Following the specific requirements, is slightly more challenging. For example the shot reverse shot proved to be a slight problem, in terms of the technique you used to film it.
There are two ways you can film a shot reverse shot. One way is by stopping and restarting the recording from different angles, the second way is by just positioning the camera in the middle and turning the camera left and right. Initially we tried the method where the camera was positioned in the middle, however the problem we were faced with was being able to cut the conversations in a way that the shot reverse shot was clear and meaningful.
Therefore our final decision was to re-film the scene by stopping and starting the recording.

Problems we have faced so far:
There were a few other minor problems that we faced and they consisted of setting the camera up with the tripod, trying to match on action a scene, however it did not work completely as we only had 2 shots and a match on action generally works better with 3 shots and finally a filming issue whereby in the background a classroom door was open, when it needed to be closed for the scene to flow correctly.

What we are going to do to resolve these problems?
To get the match on action editing technique to work we are going to film another shot from a different angle.
To get the scene to flow correctly we are going to take extra notice that the backdrop is set to fit the scene.

Problems- 

After watching the final cut, we concluded that we had a few problems. 

our first problem was that towards the end, the camera had cut off one of the actors head, half way through, the person manning the camera realised and moved the camera slightly to fit the persons head in. This as a result to not having a controlled camera which as an affect can decrease our mark significantly. 

Secondly our shot reverse shot was not shot from the right angles. The camera needed to be further away. 

Finally our use of match on action used three shots as needed- to represent the characters travels in a quicker way however didn't actually show the character sitting down, it just cut straight to us sitting down- therefore resulting in the shot not being clear. 

Solutions- 

To fix these issues we are going to conduct a second shot whereby we will take extra precautions with the use of editing in terms of the match on action and making each stage completely clear. In terms of camera use we will ensure the shot is properly framed each time we stop and start the recording to prevent any further errors. 

Done by Priyanka

My conclusion

We have resolved the problems but our first shoot is not perfect, we are awating feedback by Mr ford so we can shoot our 2nd one and make the most improvements. I also think on our real task for the opening we need to find actors as me and Priyanka would not stop laughing in this and it did waste a lot off time that we could off filmed more or edited it down more.

Continuity Editing Task

Continuity Editing Task (basic instructions)

 

 In this task, our basic first we had to create a shot list for our short piece lasting no longer than 90 seconds.

This task has some specific requirements. They consist of:

• not breaking the 108 degree rule- this is where the camera may not cross the invisible straight line. 

The 180 degree rule is an invisible line that shows the spacial relationship between characters on screen, this is generally used when it comes to a conversation. A shot like this makes it easier for the audience to follow and understand the order of the conversation. Here is a diagram to demonstrate:

• including shot reverse shot 
• include a variety of camera angles 
• the use of editing to make sure the continuity of the scene is clear
• more than one location
• interaction between others
• non-diegetic sound

This is our first attempt for the shot list:

The person manning the camera is Chelsea Wilson 

The actors are myself (Priyanka Chawla), Aman Dhillon and Luke Maye's

 

 

This was done by Priyanka and we have followed our shot list and filmed and edited our first shoot

What am i doing to aid my learning / what have i learnt so far?

To aid my learning in this coursework I am going watching video's of how famous directors done camera angles and used cameras mostly before sound was made in films to see characters emotion. I am also watching a new range of thriller films and analysing there title sequence like "Final Destination" the opening title is very animated and draws your attention and it also shows some of the film so you are not sitting there bored looking at names. This is what we will try and do and aid in one scene in the opening that makes the audience question the whole film. Also I believe animated title sequence's is the way forward due to the technical aspect coming into films now days like 3D. Many teenagers like this animation as they might find the names popping on the screen boring but as soon as you see a flying knife shooting past the screen with a name on it, it loses the boring element.

I have learnt from my research that it is not easy to just make a film it takes time and you need to gather a lot of things before you even begin to start planning for your film. We are just doing first 5minutes and it takes a lot of research so to do a film it would take a very long time. I am going to start research more now as I have realised the minimum of research will not get me a Grade B or above. I will need to blog everyday and analyse my results and try get the most amount of research I can to achieve the best possible grade.

The Art Of The Title Sequence

he Art of a Title sequence

The art of a title sequence is the way in which the opening of a film is set. The factors that are dependant on it are the typography (style f text), the background, the sound used, the feeling it is intending to create.

The art of a title sequence is especially significant when it comes to a thriller. 

To assess how The art of a title sequence varies, I have analysed different types of thrillers and there opening scene. This helps me get a better understanding of how thrillers are altered to have an affect on the audience. 

Se7en- 1995

The typography used in this film is hand sketched in quite a rough and uncomfortable way. This style of text is used to add a layer of temporal distress. 

The sound used starts of slow and eerie building a sense of suspense, slowly the sound turns electric becoming more uncomfortable.
The use of flashing images portrays a disturbing feeling.
To conclude the opening scene introduces the themes of hopelessness, apathy, desperation and violence.

Ernest Scared Stupid- 1991

This film is a mix of physical comedy, puns and reference to classical films (during the opening scene)

The typography used is very colourful yet has an element of thriller by the blood dripping down.
This gives the feel of a comical thriller.

The imagery used connotes that the film is like an old style haunted house type of film. However in 1991 this type of film may have been considered scary but at present it wouldn't be considered scary because as an audience we have become desensitised to that type of sub genre and makes us laugh more than anything.

The sound used also adds to the art of the title sequence because it starts of with the sort of Dracula horror then gradually has a comical element added to it.



To conclude 'The Art of a Title Sequence' is very important as it sets the tone of the film and also gives the viewer an insight as to what to expect.

The art of a title sequence may include aspects like key events that take place during the course of the film. It is also common that the typography would last around 3 seconds (minimum) this is decided depending on the affect the producer would like to have on the audience.

Thriller Research

Thriller genre  (Done by Luke in my group)

Thriller uses suspense, tension and excitement as its main elements. Thrillers heavily stimulate the viewers moods, giving them a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, surprise, anxiety and/or terror. Films of this genre tend to be adrenaline-rushing, gritty, rousing and fast paced.

A thriller provides the sudden rush of emotions, excitement, and exhilaration that drive the narrative, sometimes subtly with peaks and lulls, sometimes at a constant, breakneck pace. It keeps the audience on “the edge of their seats”.

Thrillers often make use of literary devices such as red herrings, plot twists and cliffhangers. A thriller is usually a villain driven plot which presents various problems a protagonist must overcome.

Psychological thrillers are fictional thriller storys which enphasizes the psychology of its characters and their unstable emotional states, with similarities to gothic and detective fiction in sense of “dissolving sense of reality”, moral ambiguity, and complex and tortured relationships between obsessive and pathological characters.

Psychological thrillers often incorporate elements of mystery, drama and horror.

Examples: The Machinist, House of 9, Straw Dogs, Shutter Island.

Supernatural thrillers bring in otherworldly elements(such as fantasy and/or supernatural) mixed with tension, suspense and plot twists. Sometime the protagonist and/or villain have some form of psychic ability or super powers. Examples: The Dead Zone, Chronicle, Frequency.

Techno Thrillers are suspense films in which manipulation of sophisticated technology plays a prominent part. Examples: Jurassic Park

Spy Thriller: The protagonist is generally a government agent who must take violent action against agents of a rival government or (in recent years) terrorists. The sub genre usually deals with the subject of fictional espionage in a realistic way. Its is a significant aspect of British cinema.

Examples: The parallax View, The Tailor of Panama, Taken, Unknown.

Codes and Conventions

Characters: Resourceful Heroes, Convicts, Soldiers, Spies, Law enforcement, stalkers, men associated with danger, criminals, assassins, Innocents which are dragged into danger, Psychos, Prisoners

Themes: Terroism, Political conspiracy, Psychological mind games, supernatural events, crime, spies, chase, suspense

Symbolism: Cars, Weapons, Urban settings, tension building music, fast paced editing, low lighting

Effect on Audience: Excitement, suspense, anticipation, nerve wrecking tension, anxiety, uncertainty

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock was the most famous thriller director of his time and was said to have helped shape the modern-day thriller genre. He was said to be considered a master of manipulating is audiences fear and desires, and taking viewers into a state of association with facing the reality of the character. He would often include a taboo or sexually-related theme into his films.

Hitchcock's films often placed an innocent victim (an average person) into a strange, life-threatening or terrorising situation, due to mistaken identity, misidentification or wrongful accusation.

Common Traits of Thriller Films

-Low Key Lighting

-Shadows

-Obtrusive Editing(Quick Cuts, Changes in camera angles)

-Tension Music

-Stairs

-Flashbacks

-Black and White

-Freeze Frames

-Slow Motion




My evaluation of thriller research - I believe luke has researched this very well and it has information on each Sub-genre of a thriller so this will allow our group to decide which one to pick after all our research is collected. I have learnt from this that they're is many aspects that go into a thriller and we will need to pick our characters and scenes very carefully if we want a good and strong opening. I will research more on Hybrids and the technical code and add it in.

   

Researching Evaluation Questions

By looking at the final evaluation questions, as a group we can start to set criteria's we need to meet in order to get the best grade possible.

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products? 
• How does your media product represent particular social groups? 
• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? 
• Who would be the audience for your media product? 
• How did you attract/address your audience? 
• What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product? 
• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from
it to the full product?

Questionaire

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WCXT3WY

Research on age guidelines

A 15 can have anything including 

 

·         strong violence

·         frequent strong language (eg 'f***').

·         portrayals of sexual activity

·         strong verbal references to sex

·         sexual nudity

·         brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence

·         discriminatory language or behaviour

·         drug taking

 

Compared to an 18 which can have 

 

·         very strong violence

·         frequent strong language (eg 'f***') and/or very strong language (eg ‘c***’)

·         strong portrayals of sexual activity

·         scenes of sexual violence

·         strong horror

·         strong blood and gore

·         real sex (in some circumstances)

 

 

I believe we should do a R rated film, as most teenagers are watching films in the age range off 13-17. If we do 18 it cuts out the teenagers and goes straight to the adults so we miss out a whole group off audiences. Rated R means you can go to watch it without an adult at 17 but if you are under 17 you will have to go with an adult. this is good as if the adults allow there kids to watch this they do trust them. This will also stop kids imitating what they see also as they are with there parents.

 

The most popular thrillers are rated R being 

 

-Pulp fiction

-The purge

-Psycho

-Inception

-Jaws

 

All these movies have a twist in also which is very good. All off these movies all contain some action and swearing and are very popular so i believe we should include these as it is very popular with the audience.

 

Audience theory

Target Audience- the sort off audience that media is aiming at.


Target Audience can be broken into sub-categories


Age
Race
Gender
Class
Disability
Religion

There are 3 main theory's that will get us a better understanding about the relationship between text being :

1) The effects model
2) The uses of Grafications Model
3) Reception Theory


There is two difference sort off audiences

Active audience- engaging with a media text
Passive audience- they don't consciously take in the message being portrayed.

Primary- Actively engaging with the text

Secondary- Not paying attention whilst listening or reading a text.

Tertiary- Unconsciously taking in information

Post production sound

Post production has 5 main sounds.



Parallel sounds - The music matches what your seeing. Example - Car revving

Contrapuntal Sound: Sound that it opposite from what you see. Example - romantic music in action scene

Sound Bridge: When the music from one scene goes into the next.

Ambient Sound: Sound that you expect to hear in a certain location. Example - music in concert

Foley Sound: Everyday sounds that are added to a certain clip.

Effects model

The effects model has 3 main points

Imitation is audiences see the representation of media texts passively and then copy what they are shown as the assume it is acceptable as it has been showed more than once

Desensitisation involves media texts loosing their the effect they are supposed to have on audiences, audience see this so much that it becomes typical.

Catharsis involves audiences engaging with media texts as a sense of escapism, they forget about their problems and just feel sorry for what they see in the media. A typically example would be Eastenders as audience see these and begin to forget about there problems.

What is the purpose of censorship?

 The purpose of censorship is to filter out some things that are deemed to be explicit, it is used so mass audiences do not see explicit content and so younger generation are not seeing things they shouldn't be.

Hayes Code : Motion Picture Production Code was a set of rules that censorship guidelines followed. It was released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. It is also mostly known as the Hays Code, after Hollywood's chief censor of the time, Will H. Hays. The Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), which later became the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), adopted the code in 1930, it was enforced in 1934, and abandoned in 1968. It was used to say what was acceptable and what wasn't. But was scrapped in 1968 for MPPA film rating system that we still follow now.

What wasn't acceptable in the Hayes code

1. Selling drugs
2. sex perversion
3. White slavery
4. Sex relationships between the white and black races
5. Scenes of childbirth
6. Children's sex organs
7. The use of the flag in a bad way
8. Arson
9. Firearms
10. Theft, robbery, safe-cracking, and dynamiting of trains, mines, buildings, etc.
11. Brutality and possible gruesomeness
12. Technique of committing murder
13. Methods of smuggling
14. Sympathy for criminals
15. Attitude toward public characters
16. Apparent cruelty to children and animals
17. Branding of people or animals
18. Prostitution
19. Rape or attempted rape
20. Man and woman in bed together
21. Surgical operations

Now days most off this I have seen in the media, this is because after Hayes code the media put it in the media so much that it became normal, Now it is nothing when we see it and is seen as normal in a movie. Nearly every action movie has Firearms. The media puts this in and now we know its there but don't really think it shouldn't be there as we are used to seeing guns in action film and without it, it would seem boring as we are not used to seeing them without.

Music videos are mostly girls running and dancing around half naked but the first few started doing it and then most off music videos do it now and it is seen as normal, even though it sends the wrong image out to the younger generation we still watch it. Rihanna is most little girls favourite singer but in her new music video she is half naked but the younger generation is used to seeing this. but I believe this is wrong and they shouldn't show video's like this till after 8pm.

How far do you agree with the comment that mass audiences are still passive recpients of media texts?

A passive audience is - an audience that does not actively engage with the media text.

I agree to this statement to some extent but I also disagree, I agree because we all do learn from the media and we take parts off our favourite celebrity's or idols. The media injects us and put thoughts in our head with us actually knowing, we sub consciously know. Also the times have changed in 1920 a movie would never had a naked lady running across the screen but as an audience we have seen it so much in movie that we acknowledge it but it doesn't effect us as much as it would effect an older person. If the abnormal is seen to be normal and showed enough then the abnormal will become the normal. Same as a music video, now kids young as 10 are used to seeing women dancing around half naked in music videos, I think this sends them the wrong image out to them and they should only put appropriate music video's on till 8pm.


Your views on a media text also depends on your gender. As you can see on this "lad mag". Most males would say this is alright and nothing wrong but a women could be offended by this and say the perception of women could just be big breasts slim waist and big bum. Therefore men would look at this and will sub consciously think all women should be like this.








I disagree to this statement on some note though because we choose who we are and media only gives us an idea. Most people will see there favourite celebrity's with a new hairstyle and want to immediately copy it but only a handful of them would know if it would actually look nice on them so they make there own decision and ignore the media trying to inject them saying this style is in. But most people wouldn't care if it does suit them or not and just imitate the celebrity in hope to try and fit in with the mass audience.

We also are being stereotypical when looking at media and drift of into our thoughts, we all didn't believe blondes were dumb or Asians were smart but when it was shown a lot by the media then we sub consciously agreed to it and let the media inject us.

Some things by the media we cant help but I believe we do allow our self's to be injected with thoughts as we want to be the same as other people and not get let out. But some people can ignore this and try to be what they want to be without following others.

Signs and Interpretations

Semiotics - study off sign systems which allows us to deconstruct media texts to understand how meaning is created

Signifier - the object itself, example a glass

Signified - what the object represents, example a rose represents love.

A sign is the smallest element off meaning, they will be grouped together to create a larger meaning. this is called codes which can be decoded or interpreted.

Denotation - The literal meaning off a sign

Connotation -  The interpreted meaning off a sign

Polysemy - Lots of different meaning's and has a lot off different interpretations.

Hollywood Studio System

The Hollywood studio system

-started in 1920
-films are known for a specific narrative combined with a set off cinematic narrative
-reliable return for investment
-the actors and directors become known for that specific genre
-studios therefore were known through there specific style

Fall off Studio system

-13th may 1948
-vertical integration, this is where companies own everything including production, distribution and venus.
-rapid growth off the little companies
-introduction off new sound
-rise off television meant people were staying at home

Key Concepts

Concept off Genre

Sub genre - a type of genre in a genre, for example a thriller.

Hybrid genre - Something which has two different genres built into one for a film, example would be an action thriller.

What is a genre? 

A genre is a set off conventions usually through iconography, familiar narrative, mise-en-scene, actors and style off reprensation. Genres are not static but constantly renegotiated between industry and audience. It is a combination off familiar reassurance and new twists.

Genre will help aid me in my brief as it will plan the basics for me, so if i choose horror it wouldn't be set out in a happy farm, it would be set out in dark woods or something that the audience would not expect. It is a creative strategy used by film producers to ensure the audience identification with a film.

Genre offers comforting reassurance in a uncomfortable world. The bad guys in films are always killed or punished so genre is a way off balancing life.

 

With my brief it will function like a language, it will set rules and vocabulary which will organize meaning.

Brief

Main Task.

I will need to create a opening to any genre off a film, lasting 2 minutes.

To help me do this i will need to

-Research
-Planning
-Filming
-Pre production
-Post production