Representation in Films

In this task, I have made a mind-map which expresses my analyses of the films, and the way in which the social group of young people are represented within them. 




Learning Comment:

The social group I have tried to identify the representation of in the films I have looked at is young people. I have found that the use of sound, mise en scene, editing and camera angles all affects how the youth are represented in these films, therefore in these two analyses, young people are represented in two totally different ways. For example in 21 Jump Street, teenagers are represented as being reckless and immature, giving way to the stereotypes that society has of them and connoting the unpredictability and chaos that goes on in their lives. Whereas in the Submarine opening title sequence, teenagers are presented as being calm, peaceful and sophisticated. This is through the use of high camera angle shots and wide establishing shots of peaceful open spaces. Young people are also shown to be quite isolated in this sequence because the protagonist is the only person we meet, and through the use of mise en scene, the positioning of this character from a low angle looking up at large mountain ranges and oceans makes the area look desolate, and connotes to the audience that he feels quite insignificant and unnoticeable compared to everything else around him. 

I have learnt from this task that the use of codes and conventions throughout the opening title sequence is vital when it comes to how you want to represent your protagonist and their social group. My title sequence will involve quite a few slower transitions and editing effects because I have found that this is one of the techniques used to show the insecurity of teenagers. These representations also help the primary audience of demographic E to identify with the characters, whereby engaging in the film from the beginning.

Narrative Structure

For this task, I have made a mind-map on Spiderscribe that showed my analysis of three opening sequences of coming of age films, and how these used different aspects of media theories to entice an audience into watching the film. 

I have used two films I have watched before, Wild Child and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and then I have analysed a further film of which I haven't seen apart from the opening sequence, Stand By Me. 

Here is the mind-map I have created to express my ideas:

Learning comment:

In this task, I have learned that I need to include:

- A clear protagonist with a villain and helper to help establish a clear equilibrium. By showing these characters already in the opening sequence, it allows the audience to see clearer narrative elements and help to set up the narrative. (Propp)

- After the establishment of the equilibrium, the disruption of the equilibrium is often shown or at least implied after the first few minutes of the film. This is because the film still needs to be fast-paced and give the audience something to look at, and put some sort of chaos in the storyline. (Todorov)

- Showing binary opposites within my plot will help to expose the narrative to the audience because it will establish a clear opposition between the hero and the villain, plus it helps to contrast between good and evil, whereby engaging the audience's attention. (Levi-Strauss)

- The use of action & enigma codes help to engage an audience in an opening sequence because they make the audience question the direction of the narrative, helps them to establish links between characters and also makes them question upcoming events through the use of enigma codes.

Title Research

For this piece of research I have taken three opening sequences to coming of age films, and have individually analysed each section of typography. I have taken screenshots each time text appears and written about how they help to engage a target audience throughout the credits. The films I have chosen to look at are 10 Things I Hate About You, Austin Powers and Home Alone, and the videos I have created to show my analyses can be seen below: -











On top of this title research, I have chosen to look into an opening title sequence for a film I've seen that has credits different to any other sequence I have looked at. The opening title sequence for Trainspotting that was distributed by Channel 4 Films in 1996 has a different take on opening titles, so by clicking on the video below you can see my analysis of why they have done titles so differently:




Learning comment:

Through looking at a wide range of opening film sequences, I have learned how crucial the typography is to the overall presentation of the film. It can help in constructing the narrative and establishing the genre to the audience, and this influences their thoughts of the entire film, right from the opening two minutes. I feel like now I have analysed the use of colours,  fonts and text placement in four very well regarded opening sequences, I now have a much more in depth understanding of what key aspects of typography I should use to make my opening sequence. 
The titles that are the most common in opening sequences are the ones that I think are vital to include when making my own, and these are:

Institutional information
Film title 
Protagonist
Other major cast
Other minor cast
Casting director
Costume designer
Music producer 
Editor(s)
Producer & co-producers
Director's name - presented last

Audience Research

As part of this assignment, we did a few different types of research in order to get a really good sense of what our target audience are looking for in terms of creating a coming of age opening sequence. 
The first thing we did was create a survey, which I then went to put online, so that we could have as many people as possible answering it. 

If you click on where my video below, you should be able to see what results we were able to collect from our survey:



From this qualitative data collected by Freya Vincent and I from the target audience of our coming of age film, we have found that roughly 70% of teenagers are familiar with what the coming of age film genre is and that generally these people are female. This is helping to establish who the audience of our film is going to be, along with what we have found out about teens' favourite film genres. The clear favourite film genre of people in audience demographic E is the comedy genre, with others such as romance, drama and action proving to be popular. As this is our set task, whichever opening sequence type we make will be based around the coming of age genre, but for our opening sequence we will include other aspects of the  aforementioned genres in our construction of the narrative in order to engage not only the primary, but also the secondary audience, as much as possible. This survey, along with the findings from our focus group interviews, will be a major influence to our opening sequence, and has already given us a few ideas as to what we would eventually like to create as a group. 

Me and Freya then went on to do an audience research focus group with a group of AS Media students and gathered some responses as to what our target audience thought about film opening sequences and coming of age films: 



As a group we also did some quantitative data analysis to find out which famous coming of age films have been the most successful upon their release. We used websites such as IMDB and other online sources to look at numbers such as DVD sales and cinema numbers, and you can see that beneath, Ella Henley has made a presentation to show the figures and research that she came across: -



And here are the finding's of Becky Moffat's audience research: - 


Learning Comment:

Our audience research has brought me to many conclusions as to how my group and I should construct the narrative of our opening sequence, and the key conventions and techniques we should use to help in actively engaging the audience. For example from carrying out the focus group, I have discovered that the primary target audience of our film prefer having the protagonist and or/main characters established within the first few minutes of the film and so having them in the opening sequence is a good way to help to introduce characters to the audience and help them to understand where they stand with the characters. 
A style that I found to be successful when creating opening sequences is where you create the film sequence with a flow of music over the top, because this idea seemed to be very popular with our target audience and makes sure that the audience can link the audio to the visuals on screen. However, from my own research I think that there isn't enough use of other non-diegetic sound and that in order to create an opening that stands out from the others of this genre, I should use more of these to help engage my audience. This is also a convention used in a lot of Jason Reitman's well-known films, who has been very successful in creating films of the coming of age genre.

Director Case Study: Jason Reitman

                                   
                                     

37 year old Jason Reitman is a film director, born in Quebec, Canada, in 1977. He is the son of director Ivan Reitman and so he has always grown up surrounded by film sets and comedic actors like Bill Murray - even working as an extra in his films on occasion. After a failed attempt at a pre-med degree at the university of New York and an escape from living in his father's shadow, he then returned to Los Angeles and enrolled at Southern California's School of Cinema-television. 

After years of turning down opportunities to direct big-budget films like Ghost Buster's 3, he finally released his first full-length feature film in 2006, called "Thank You for Smoking", which received amazing reviews and Reitman was being recognised as an original director. It was his second film however, Juno, which got him an Academy Award nomination for best director, and is regarded as one of the best coming of age films ever made. 

He has a particular style when it comes to opening credits which is smooth and sharply edited. The camera movement on all of his titles is a slow pan across the screen, allowing you to take in the information given and have a look at the location shown in the background. A typical convention of Reitman's opening credits is his use of high key lighting and bright colours. This is used in many of his sequences to reflect the light-hearted nature of his films and to give the connotations of a movie that will be fun and entertaining to watch. The genre of his films are usually romantic comedy-dramas, which is a sub-genre that often captures the attention of those in audience demographic E. 

A camera angle Reitman uses a lot in his opening sequences is the high-angle shot. This is clever because in a way, it tells us quite a lot about the narrative of the movie. A high angle shot connotes to the audience that something is going to happen to the protagonist in the film that they will have no control over. This, consequently, draws in the audience even more because they want to watch it to see what will be the disruption of the equilibrium.
More than the use of camera angles however, Reitman does a lot of tracking with the camera. This steady camera movement is used to connect shots together and helps the sequence to flow better.

Jason Reitman often doesn't show you the characters in the film during his opening two minutes. However, in Juno he used the protagonist walking across the screen to show the audience who the main character was, but also the camera tracking was cleverly used as a way to document time passing. In this sequence, he makes particular use of close-up angles, which is a good technique because it shows you a good view of the character's facial expressions. Through this use of mise en scene, you can tell a lot about the narrative and genre of the film; seeing Juno smiling in the opening sequence showed us that this film is going to be happy, maybe even funny. Moreover, even just by seeing her face you can tell she is young, which is a typical convention of coming of age films. 

The music used in his opening sequences is often very upbeat and memorable. For example, in Juno he used the song "All I want is you" by Barry Louis Polisar. This song makes you pay attention to the screen, and Reitman ensures that each of his shots fits in perfectly with the beats of the song, which means that the whole sequence flows a lot smoother.   
It is rare that he actually uses any added sounds in his opening sequences, however when he does they are non-diegetic sounds like the sound of an airplane taking off, which he uses when deemed necessary.   

The narratives of his films are often quite similar. This is because most of his films start out with the protagonist landing themselves with a problem. The plot tells the story of the character trying to work their way out of the problem and often coming to a solution that doesn't solve the issue but gives the film a just and unexpected ending. This style of narrative is what keeps his films interesting and makes them original, because the equilibrium is always restored, but not in the way you would expect it to be. 


Learning comment:

From this piece of research I have gathered a lot of information about the techniques directors use in their opening sequences, and how I can now go on to use these in my own work. For example, I now know that tracking the camera is a good way to link my shots together in order to create a well-flowing title sequence. A technique that I liked of which Reitman used is the use of music that is reflective of the narrative of the film. e.g he used Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that cigarette! by Tex Williams in his film Thank You for Smoking. 
This is because it is a clever way to link the sound to the visuals and therefore made the titles relevant, and intriguing. 
When constructing the narrative of my film, I am going to create a plot that is unpredictable, but still gives a sense of fulfillment at the end. This is because it is what's going to make my opening sequence individual and stand out from others in the same genre. However, when doing this I will still use conventions of coming-of-age films such as non-diegetic sound and high key lighting to appeal to the audience of demographic E and make the film recognisable.        

Film Producers & Distributors

In this task I have looked at many different major and minor film producers and distributors in order to be able to discuss who I would want to distribute my coming of age film. The research I have gathered can be seen in this Prezi below:



Learning Comment:

From this piece of research I have learned the difference between major and minor film institutions. I now know that companies like Universal are more likely to distribute films with high budgets such as Avatar because they have funding from companies like the uk film council, and therefore they can afford to hire more well known actors. Blockbuster companies commonly have subsidiaries to their companies so that they have smaller independent companies to release films of a smaller genre/sub-genre in case they are not popular with the target audience and flop in the cinema upon release. 

Some of the common companies that are well known for producing coming of age films are Mr Mudd and Film4. These are art house broadcasting companies that are known for creating coming of age film and television, such as Submarine. These are the types of companies we should use when producing and distributing our film opening sequences. These are recognisable institutions for people who enjoy watching coming of age films, so by using companies that are associated with the genre, we will thereby increase the likelihood of attracting and engaging a large target audience, primarily in audience demographic E.   

Conventions of an Opening Sequence

Sixteen Candles 



Here is an example of work done by Ella Henley:

 

Here is another powerpoint done by a member of my media class, Freya Vincent:

 

  Learning Comment:

After viewing my previous learning comments,  I now know that not only do film opening sequences use specific codes and conventions depending on the genre of the movie, but also that different directors use specific conventions as a signature in their own opening titles', for example there are many similarities between the John Hughes' directed films, Sixteen Candles and Ferris Beuller's Day Off, such as the use of family to set the scene in the first two minutes of the film. 
The use of mise en scene in these opening sequences is subtle but very effective because it is partly what helps the target audience identify with the film. For example in the Sixteen Candles opening sequence, they use the body language of the protagonist to show that she's a very insecure teenager and this was felt by a lot of young people at the time therefore making the film a lot more relatable to the target audience; it helped to identify the film as having a coming of age genre and also helped to engage their interest in the film too. 
The way that the credits were edited between the opening introduction scene and the start of the actual film was good because it set up the perfect start to the narrative. The dialogue used was effective too because after the first two minutes, the audience already knew what the film was going to be about and therefore could decide whether the film was engaging for them or not.