Title Research: The Dead Zone

This blog is title research on the movie 'The Dead Zone' from watchthetitles.com.

How many titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film?

20 titles were displayed during the opening sequences of the film.

What images are prioritized in the opening sequence?

Images of nature/ a town, which is most-likely the setting are prioritized.

What connotations do the images carry?

The images carry a mysterious connotation because the audience wonders the significance
of the images and may infer they are of the setting.

How is the genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset?

The thriller genre is reinforced by bringing a sense of mystery by playing mysterious-sounding
music and showing images in which the audience does not understand the significance of yet.

How does the film establish an enigma from the outset?

The movie creates a sense of mystery by showing the images and the music as well as titles.

What strategies are used to ensure the film appears to its target audience?

Strategies of suspense and mystery are used to attract audiences who crave the common
aspects of the thriller genre and who may of read Stephen King's novel, which the film is based on.

How has technology been used effectively? (Consider camera angles, transitions and editing
techniques)

The editing techniques are very appealing, with an outline of the title over the background images
appearing more and more as time goes on. There is also a fade out at the end of the title.
There also is a lot of motion during the images being displayed, but not in an unprofessional way.

Title Research: Seven

This blog is title research on the movie 'Seven' from watchthetitles.com

How many titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film?

31 titles are displayed during the opening sequence to the film.

What images are prioritized in the opening sequence?

Images of newspaper articles and what looks to be evidence of the article content is
prioritized in the opening scene.

What connotations do the images carry?

These images carry a negative connotation as well as suggests an eerie/creepy mood.

How is the genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset?

The genre is reinforced by playing intense and scary music. This creates a level of suspense
often seen in thriller movies. 

How does the film establish an enigma from the outset?

It creates this level of suspense and makes the audience wonder what is going on next. It
leads the audience to have to infer what the movie is about or what is going on.

What strategies are used to ensure the film appears to its target audience?

Strategies of suspense and intensity gets the audience nervous and intrigued, wondering
what will happen next. Looking at the intro, it uses common thriller conventions, which attract
usual audiences of thriller movies.

How has technology been used effectively? (Consider camera angles, transitions and editing
techniques)

This intro uses transitions in between titles well. The titles are able to be read easily when they
appear, and when they're not on screen, interesting flashes and glimpses of pictures appear that
make the audience want to keep watching.

Title Research: Split

This opening sequence was found on Art of the Titles.

How many titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film?
I counted twenty five titles displayed during the opening sequences of the film. Almost at the beginning of the opening sequence, the main movie title showed up. Directly at the end was the director's name.

What images are prioritized in the opening sequence?
Images of a girl being transported in a dark laboratory looking building are prioritized. Whenever a title shows up the screen cuts to black with the title.

What connotations do the images carry?
The images carry a dark feeling to them, which accurately represents what the thriller genre is like. It may make viewers feel unsettled and know that something is very off with what is happening.

How is the genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset?
The genre is reinforced through the dark feel of the outset through making the viewers have a strong sense that something is wrong. The lighting of it helps establish something is darker as well because of it not being very bright and being very yellow and dismal. The thriller genre relies on the feeling of fear or unease at times so this really emphasizes that.

How does the film establish an enigma from the outset?
It makes the viewer want to know what is going on because not much is clear yet.

What strategies are used to ensure the film appeals to it's target audience?
The film uses a popular themes of kidnapping in the genre which may appeal to the target audience since they are used to it. They also use common camera angles in the genre as well like low angles and close ups. The audio is creepy as well, so that also might draw it's target audience in because of the fear factor.

How has technology been used effectively?
The lighting of the shots convey the genre well and make the unsettling mood clear in the opening sequence. Also, camera shots convey the actions being done well. The cut to black and split up titles for the titles also makes the name "split" come into play.

Title Research: Zodiac

This opening sequence was found on Art of the Titles.

How many titles are displayed during the opening sequences to the film?
I counted thirty titles displayed during the opening sequences of the film. Around a quarter of the way through the opening sequence the main movie title showed up. Directly at the end was the director's name.

What images are prioritized in the opening sequence?
Images of the man's drawing and work are mainly prioritized in the opening sequence though they show his morning schedule. He is in most of the shots. This emphasizes that he is one of the main characters.

What connotations do the images carry?
The images carry a lighthearted feel to them, which is a stark contrast to what the genre is like. It may make viewers wonder what will happen to make things change moods and become possibly darker.

How is the genre reinforced through symbolic and technical codes from the outset?
The genre is reinforced through the lighthearted feel of the outset through making the viewers have a slight sense of unease. The lighting of it helps establish something is darker as well because of it not being very bright. The thriller genre relies on the feeling of being on edge so this emphasizes that.

How does the film establish an enigma from the outset?
It introduces a new thing happening to the main character which leads the viewer to want to understand what happens next. The main character is told to go somewhere which leaves a bit of mystery.

What strategies are used to ensure the film appeals to it's target audience?
The film uses a popular actor in the genre which may appeal to the target audience. They also use common camera angles in the genre as well. The song choice in the beginning was similar to other songs used in thriller movies as well, so that also might draw it's target audience in.

How has technology been used effectively?
The lighting of the shots effectively convey the genre and make the mood clear in the opening sequence. Also, the low angle and medium shots convey the actions being done well. The text used for the titles also set the genre well. Since the movie is about the zodiac killer, using magazine cutout like letters makes it appeal more to the theme.

Title Research: Watch the TItles

This site is called watchthetitles.com and we are looking at it to help us with research on titles. This site is going to help tremendously with the final task. The first two minutes of a film include a large amount of titles. Because of this, research is required to make sure that our titles are accurate. They also should follow the conventions of our genre (thriller). On this site, there are multiple categories of titles to watch. This includes films, TV shows, and video games. For this research, we will only be watching titles from movies in our genre. The site also includes a list of movie designers, as well as movie studios. The site also allows you to search for keywords. This helped a lot because we were able to search up our genre and find titles from that genre to watch. Before being able to look at the site ourselves, our teacher gave us a rundown on how to use this site (and another). Using the site is fairly simple- you can select the type of media that you want to watch the title sequence from. It then gives you a list of them (movies in this case) to browse through and watch. Overall, we believe that this site will prove very helpful in researching titles and with the final task.

Title Research: Art of the Title

One website we are using is Art of the Title. We are using this website to research title sequences of movies of the same genre as ours. They seem to be a great website for finding title sequences of recent movies. They have a variety of title sequences of all kinds of movies on this website, including ones which we plan on using to look at to research for our movie clip. The website has title sequences of different movies from comedy movies to horror movies. It even has some show's opening title sequences as well. It also includes lists of a lot of designers and studios that made the title sequences. One thing it has that is useful is articles about some of the title sequences. These are helpful in finding descriptions of the sequences. It also gives descriptions of each title sequence which is extremely helpful. When using the website, you can search for specific movies you want. Which turned out to be really quick and easy. Another thing it allows you to do is search keywords to find specific genres of opening titles. We found this to be even more helpful in finding good opening titles. Overall, this website will really help in our research.

Genre Research '47 Meters Down' (2017)

Camera angles:

One camera angle they use very often in the film is close ups.

In a lot of the scenes the characters are in small spaces and to show that, they used close ups.

They also used POV shots to show things from the character’s point of view and increase suspense.

They also used wide shots a lot, since most of the scenes are underwater and they needed to show all of the open space and sharks.

Costumes, lighting, actors, makeup, props, setting: 

The characters change between a few different costumes throughout the film.

At first they are wearing tropical clothes and bathing suits that you could wear to the beach.

They also wear dresses and party attire in the beginning of the movie.

For the majority of the movie they wore scuba gear and diving suits though.

The lighting at the beginning of the movie was bright and natural.

When they go underwater it gets darker and more blue tinted.

When something starts to go wrong it is usually darker or redder in color.

Throughout the film they wear no makeup since they go underwater and are at the beach for all of the scenes.

The props they use are the equipment on the boat and the diving equipment.

The setting is in the middle of the ocean in a cage underwater.

Sounds:

At the beginning, there is a song playing over the clips. This happens again whenever there is a montage or timeskip.

They also have water noises prevalent throughout the film.

Editing:

A lot of the film was one like event occurring, but there were many cuts between the shark and the divers.

Elements of thriller in the movie:

Suspense and mild body horror are shown in the movie. Those are also common in the thriller genre.

What elements of the genre did the movie have that you liked?

I liked how the movie left you on edge for a lot of it and made you feel nervous for what would happen next.

What elements of the genre did the movie have that did not appeal to you? 

I usually don’t like gore or body horror so I didn’t really enjoy the shark attack scenes.