Font notes

During class we had a discussion about different font types and a class analysis of the following title sequences: Catch Me If You Can; Lord of War and Forest Gump. We included the conventions of each title sequence which have linked connotations which unveils a synopsis to the story and the metaphors used which gives specific parts of information away to us as an audience. We noted the specific region of where the title sequence credits is established and positioned. We found the discussion useful for further research as we learned and became more familiar with the concept of title sequences.


Forest Gump

• The colour white - the feather - purity 
• Large font - centered - traditional 
• Quite plain
• Soft and tranquilised  
• Newsprint
• Fades in
• Serif font
• Slow paced - calm - steady

Catch Me If You Can

• Two different fonts represent two different characters - personalities - roles
• Font sizing and clarity - easy for the viewer to read
• The font changedand transitioned0
• Saul Bass (colouring, projectile lines)
• The concept of constant movement - fonts link with the film - characters

Lord of Way

• Fonts/writing - war time - serious 
• Main characters names presented in the centre, cast and crew appear at the side
• Metal printing
• Large fonts - centered - names, etc
• Emotionless, serious - relation to war
• White coloured fonts
• Dark background

Production Plan

Saul Bass

Saul Bass

1) Saul Bass - (1929-1996): American Graphic Designer who became famous for his work in film and classic logo design.

2) Best known for his simple, geometric shapes and their symbolism.

3) Often a single dominant image stands alone to deliver a powerful message.

4) Studied design and at Art Student League at Manhattan.

5)His posters had an uncanny ability to capture the mood of a film with simple shapes and images (started with poster design).

6) His shapes and art work was usually hand drawn.

7) His messages were quite generic but sophisticated.

8) His shapes were hand drawn by Bass to create a casual appearance; always packed with a sophisticated message.

9) Bass created visual metaphors/stories to intrigue the viewer and to give a synopsis or reference to the film by using visual images to create a short story to convey specific key pieces of information to the audience instead of written information. He revolutionised the way people viewed title sequences/credits (pictures, cut - out projectiles - conveys synopsis to the viewer).

West Side Story - Complements music - leads to an image of the main location, through the duration of the music; lines appear which eventually creates the full image (simplicity of location).Abstract.

Quotation - "I want everything we do to be beautiful. I don't give a damn whether the client understands that that's worth anything, or that the client thinks it's worth anything, or whether it is worth anything. It's worth it to me. It's the way I want to live my life. I want to male beautiful things, even if nobody cares." - Saul Bass

Group research - sounds

• We found some uncopyrighted soundtracks on youtube, we were thinking about adding one of the soundtracks or even layering two soundtracks to create a remix of sounds for our title sequence. We would prefer our soundtrack to correlate well with our title sequence; considering and conveying the necessary elements which we desire to attain.

• We have also considered sounds for our zombies; we have considered creating our own zombie sounds for our title sequence.

• The zombie makeup tutorial video is an asset to our project; the contents have shown us the required parts we would require for our title sequence. (The veins, dark shadowing, boils, blood - these are the things we would want our zombies to have - appearance).

I was looking into music for horror genre; I found this example of rock being used instead of orchestral music for the opening cinematic for this particular video. However, this video is an extract from a game not a film or television series. The song is by 'Avenged Sevenfold' the song name is 'Shepard of Fire' - Synergy is used between the band 'Avenged Sevenfold' and the game Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (the companyh for this game produces zombie mini games and particularly used rock music instead of orchestral for their initial game play.

Codes and Conventions

Codes and Conventions:

• Low key lighting 
• Faint images
• Foreshadowing of death/bloodshed
• Isolation
• Scenary - rural
• Foreshadowing
• Psycopath/killer - glimpse of character
• Sets Equilibrium
• Knife - foreshadowing physical weapons
• Medical imagery - experiments
• Dark clothing - not suits, jeans, t-shirt and trainers
• Handheld footage - intensifies the particular area for the audience
• General slow paced editing - longer duration of time for the audience to observe specific characteristics
• Orchestral music
• Scrape like sounds - dissonant sounds
• Words scraped - engraved into materials - suggests or foreshadows something
• Connotations of weapons
• Connotations of blood  
• Hand held - shaky - unbalance 
• Close ups - close ups of weapons, characters (abstracts of character qualities)
• Tracking shot
• Point of view shot
• High and low angles 
• Birds eye view
• Worm eye
• Pan movement 
• Establishing shot

Group Feedback

As a group we sat down with out teacher and discussed the contents of our individual blogs. We have a  small list of improvements which we need to consider for our blogs. We spoke about our film concepts; leanne gave us some ideas what we could possibly add to our film.

Group Feedback/blog feedback:

• Begin storyboarding 

• Add the label gadget to our blogs and correct our posts in chronological order.
• Create a slideshare account for future posts which may consist of PowerPoints, presentations, documents.
• Research into makeup and costumes for zombies (backgrounds etc). Find out how to create fake blood.

Lady In the Lake

Lady In The Lake (1947)

This title sequence reminds me of the title sequence from Napoleon Dynamite; they both share one contrasting similarity with their title sequences. Napoleon Dynamite presents the illustrations (text/fonts) over plates with food. The title sequence for this particular film (Lady In the Lake) has two people taking pieces of card (a male and a female character - the appearance of the hands gives away the gender for the characters) which displays the text upon the card.

I can deduce from this title sequence that the film is meant to be set around the event of Christmas due to the connotations of reindeer's and the montage of carols which are sung throughout the title sequence. The typical visual images also convey and reinforce the ideology of the film being set around the event of Christmas; increasing the significance of the concept through visual effect. The background on the pieces of card presents snow covering structures; households. There are other visual images displayed which have reference to Christmas throughout the title sequence.

Near the end of the title sequence, the music turns from a joyful and festive tone to a darkened and more sinister complexion. The melting candles could possibly connote time which has an effect on specific characters. A gun is displayed and could foreshadow future death which could give away a huge part of the story to the audience. The gun conveys death and the audience would of been noted about a future killing. Some of the lyrics in the soundtrack connote references to situations and future circumstances which characters may stumble across in future events of the film