RESEARCH: ART OF THE TITLE (STRANGER THINGS)

Stranger Things
The colours of the typeface is very stereotypical of the genre set. The red of the font can connote blood, and many of the fans of Stranger things would know this is relevant as one of the characters has nose bleeds in the episodes. The darkness that fills the rest of the screen can connote feelings of evil or unknowing which also fits in with the genre as it is a thriller/horror. This feeling of unknown is what makes a good horror film. The typeface of the title sequence is also associated with the 1980, this ties in with the title sequence as the iconic synth of the 1980's music style is played as non-diegetic sound in the background. The visuals to the title sequence have also been synced to the music that is played, with each time there is strong bass to the music, the frame changes position and new credits are shown on screen. This is very effective as it gives the title sequence pace. The typeface also appears like neon fluorescent lamp which connotes a stereotype of the 80's style of clothing which tended to be bright colours and neon lamps were a regular occurrence.

The story of the title sequence is very linear, with the story being the letters of the title sequence coming together to make the main title. The text tends to slowly move in towards the middle of the screen which is a contrasting white so they stand out in the frame. It makes it very easy for the audience to distinguish who was involved in the making of the TV series.

The weaknesses to the title sequence is that there is no introduction to the prominent actors and actresses involved in the TV series, this means that the audience will struggle to make connections between the characters and the actors that play them. To improve this I would add still shots of the actors with their characters name with the style of the still similar to that of the main header font.

RESEARCH: DISTRIBUTION COLLAGE

My chosen film is positioned as a thriller film that utilises the escapism aspect of our theoretical framework Blumler and Katz’ theory. The main selling points of this film is that it is an established franchise. It also incorporates a cross over between previous movies within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Chris Resseling of Pathe showed me insight into how distributors market a film’s unique selling point. This includes things such as star cast and its provenance. In this case Spider-man is a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe which means audiences who may not watch Spider-man but enjoy Avengers films may be more inclined to watch Spider-man Far From Home as a result. The star cast includes renowned actors such as Tom Holland (who was the previous Spider-man) and Samuel Jackson, an actor of high prestige and is known for being in good films. Spider-man Far From Home  is a sequel to the Spider-man franchise.

Kezia Williams head of theatrical distribution at Pathe explained that, in a congested marketplace, a distributors aim is to position a film in a way so that it stands out for their target audiences and makes it look unique to other films they may have seen in the same genre. They utilise their twitter pages and other social media networks in order to help build hype for the target audience so that on opening weekend the box office revenue will be larger than if no hype had been built. This includes the drip feeding of information on the film and the posters associated with it. In the case of Spider-man Far from Home the choice of posters is limited. There are four posters, the one standing out the most shows the iconic Spider-man mask and the locations they will be visiting in the film as well.

As the Spider-man Far From Home movie was made under one of the big six names (Disney) there was a big budget for high quality CGI to be used in the making of the film. This meant that scenes used could be abroad like the countries the trailers, as well as high quality animation for the web slinging in which Spider-man is renowned for. This high budget allows for a high quality movie to be made, so as a result the movie can be marketed to an audience for these aspects. As a form of marketing, as depicted by the collage above, Disney released a VR experience for Spider-man Far From Home. This game was then played by many large Youtubers, gaining the film lots of free publicity as many of the people who watched the Youtube videos would then buy the game and watch the film.

Spider-man Far From Home on the whole received good reviews from many critics. Rotten tomatoes gave the film 90% and IMDB awarding the film 7.7/10. The movie received 3 Teen Choice Awards for Movie of the Summer and best Male and Female star.

RESEARCH: ART OF THE TITLE

The Mindhunter title sequence is very effective. The story of the opening sequence is very linear, as it only follows a single story. This makes it easier for an audience to be able to keep track of what is happening on screen without getting confused with who the characters are and who the minor characters are. The Title Sequence is a chance for the filmmaker to set the tone and prepare the audience for the world they are about to enter.

The title a sequence is a person setting up an old style of audio recording hardware. This includes the diegetic sound of the hardware making creaks and the gyrating sound of metal on metal when he/she is screwing on bits of the machinery. This linear storyline avoids the addition of new characters, allowing the viewer to have a simple introduction to the new TV show. This avoids confusion and the viewer becoming overwhelmed with new and possibly irrelevant characters without even starting the show.

The use of the subliminal editing of the chilling images of rotting corpses and the dead person is very jarring. The quick-fire nature of these images helps to create a semantic field of psychological horror, as the images never stay on screen long enough for the viewer to get a good glimpse of what’s actually appeared on the screen. This could imply as to what the viewer is about to see in the episode, showing bits and pieces of the lore. This gives the viewer a brief introduction to the victim of the crime and leads them to make questions as to the significance of the corpse and the significance of the person setting up the machinery.

 Combine this with the eerie, sparse sound of the non-diegetic sound of the piano in the background. This gives the effect of the viewer's mind filling in the blanks. As the viewer can only get a split second of an image, their brain plays a part in over-exaggerating the seriousness of the images and making the images even more horrifying. The juxtaposition of the shot of the recording equipment and the corpse allows the viewer to conjure two questions: Who is the corpse, and why is there recording hardware.

The sound of the eerie piano is stereotypical of a psychological horror genre tv show. The sound of the harder-hitting keys of the piano provokes a hard cut to the frame of the corpse. This is very effective as syncing the sound to the video gives the title sequence the pace that the director is trying to give. In contrast, the pace of the person setting up the machine is much slower than the quickened frames of the corpse. At the end of the title sequence, the main title of Mindhunter appears on the screen, accompanied by a bass-filled hum of a breath. This could mean many things and the audience will generate their own questions about why it is significant. It could be indicating what the Mindhunter’s do in their jobs, the breath signalling death suggesting they are involved in, or it could present the possibility of it being the corpse’s last breath too. 

RESEARCH: Digital Storytelling

I learned from Frank Ash, the creative consultant at the BBC academy about what Digital Storytelling: how to connect with an audience through a relevant story to create suspense and anticipation. Frank devised this into a series of questions, in which you have to answer in your piece. 

When I start to plan my own Foundation work I will generate my own Top Line (an elegant sentence which will sum up the film opening to your piece) and the Big Question (what will happen next)

Frank Ash gave me guidelines to ensure i can do this successfully, which I have summarised in a comic strip using the Comic Life software, which you can see below: