Pete's Media Blog: Film Openings event at the NFT. Presentation summary as used November 2012: I had a very enjoyable day at the National Film Theatre yesterday, chairing an event of film openings from schools and colleges.
We looked at some material which is expanded upon in my post below on film openings, but also some additional material which I am linking here. We were joined by two industry speakers whose work could be useful to a wider audience of students, so I am posting links to them here too. Three film openings on www.artofthetitle.com which I showed at the event Catch Me If You Can Good as a graphic titles sequence and an illustration of how a film-maker can suggest things about character and narrative as well as establish a sense of place in an opening. Dawn of the Dead (2004) Napoleon Dynamite This sequence is a really novel way of representing the titles, but also gives us a sense of the characters, even though only one character appears and then only on his ID card. Casino Royale The official site is here. The Art Of Film Title Design Throughout Cinema History. Advertisement Have you ever thought of what makes you remember a certain movie or TV show?
Of course, it’s the story being told, you’ll say. But what about movies such as Goldfinger, Seven and Snatch? What’s the first thing that comes to mind? We are pretty sure their opening title sequences stick out for many of you. Today we’ll take a closer look at that short space of time between the moment the lights go down and the first scene of a film, the part that so often sets our expectations of a movie, that sequence that speaks to our creative side: the art of the film title.
Film titles can be great fun. For this post, we reached out to David Peters, a San Francisco-based designer and media historian who, more than a decade ago, began a project called Design Films to research the subject. Titles In Silent Film Words and lettering played an enormous role in films of the silent era.
Long Takes. Pete's Media Blog: Film openings for A level. This post is aimed at students doing the film opening task for AS Media with OCR, but there is plenty of advice here which can be of use to students doing other film-related projects, such as a short film or a trailer.
The main thing is to make your final project look like what it is supposed to be- so if it is meant to be a trailer, you need to be sure it shows the conventions of a trailer, but if it is a film opening, it MUST follow the conventions of film openings! The OCR AS video task asks you to make "the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes". Many students fall into the trap of thinking this is a really easy task and they can just have a laugh doing it and walk off with a good grade. Nothing could be further from the truth! Expectations are very high from this production work and you will need to work systematically and be extremely well organised if you are to be successful. Step 1: Ideas Step 2: Research Finally, look at old student work. Forget the Film, Watch the Titles - Collection - Film title sequence. Art of the Title.