THE ART OF THE TITLE: DELICATESSEN

We view the opening sequence of Delicatessen on The Art Of The Title website accessible here. We record our analysis in our individual blogs, noting the use of theme, colour and sound. 

We also read why it is highly rated by professional designer Karin Fong, a creative director and designer at Imaginary Forces, whose title work includes Terminator: Salvation, Boardwalk Empire and Rubicon:
"One of my all-time favorite main titles. I love how it creates a whole world in tabletop. The production design in macro is fantastic, all the details and texture, along with the music, are so charming. But more than that, how it weaves in each of the crew credits with cleverness — the DP’s credit etched on the camera, the music credit on a broken record. I’ve always appreciated how integrated the titles are with the environment, as if they are waiting for you to discover each one. It almost becomes a game, and once you realize what is going on, you delight in seeing the idea in each one—yes, of course the costume designer would be stitched on a clothing label! It’s like every credit is its own little a-ha moment."
We work out our own version of this approach, using a school or college theme.

THE ART OF THE TITLE

Essential viewing for students choosing the film opening brief: The Art Of The Title. This excellent site is dedicated to displaying and examining title opening sequences. 

1. You must TAKE 3 EXAMPLES (as below) AND COMMENT ON HOW THE OPENING TITLE SEQUENCE FUNCTIONS. This involves close observation of choice of shots, framing, mise-en-scene, colours, font choices, music codes...anything relevant. 
2. USE THIS GRID OF 9 FRAMES TO PLAN YOUR OWN OPENING TITLE SEQUENCE and post the planning on your blog.

DAYS OF HEAVEN (Terrence Malick, 1978)

Set in 1916 and telling the story of a tragic love triangle, this film evokes both the period and genre in its opening sequence, which reflects Malick's knowledge of photography and willingness to use little studio lighting. 


The film's cinematography by Morricone models itself on silent films, which often used natural light. Malick also drew inspiration from painters such as Johannes Vermeer, Edward Hopper (particularly his House by the Railroad), and Andrew Wyeth, as well as photo-reporters from the turn of the century, such as Alfred Stieglitz, Weegee (Arthur Fellig) and Jacob Riis. The street scenes capture the urban poverty of the period and explain the desperation of the film's protagonists whose future is precarious . 


We have studied Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange as an example of the power of photography as reportage and its use in social change; the close-up of the infant's and young woman's faces exert a strong appeal and tug on our heart strings. The films concerns with social difference and the need for financial security are hinted at by the stills of the girl in the wedding veil and the three young women drinking tea intercut by shots of manual workers of various kinds.


The subject matter gradually moves from the urban to more of the rural, reflecting the narrative trajectory of the film.


The enchanting orchestral music echoes the use of musical accompaniment in silent film to suggest emotion.


Period colors (brown, mahogany and dark wood for the interiors) and period costumes from used fabrics and old clothes to avoid the artificial look of studio-made costumes. The colours create the illusion of period photographs, street journalism: an essential part of creating verisimilitude or 'real life' on screen. As a result, the footage is imbued with the quality of documentary truth, of scientific 'fact' which allows the viewer to engage fully with the world of the film. 


Art of the Title comments: Firing a mix of critical thought and mesmerizing immersion, Dan Perri's title design for Terrence Malick's Days of Heavencombines street level photojournalism and credit-to-character inferences drawing the curious eye at will, the ears aswoon with "Carnival of the Animals - The Aquarium" by Camille Saint-Saens. You are nowhere if not here, with these people, in the Gilded Age of American history.'


'And then the last shot of the opening title sequence] subtlety shifts us from photos and into the world of the film. In a masterful move, the last shot perfectly replicates the same look of the previous images, but...it is one of the actors, Linda Manz (in a photograph taken by Edie Baskin.) It’s through her perspective that we will take this journey so it is fitting that she is the one who bridges the gap from the opening credits into the first shot of the film'. Read the analysis by Cinema Sights

SHERLOCK HOLMES (Guy Ritchie, 2010)

Watery cobblestone logos and longitudinal linotype layer, lace and lash Prologue Films’ opening and end credit work for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. The sequence creative director Danny Yount, a self-taught Emmy-winning designer/director, produced main titles for Six Feet Under and The Grid while at Digital Kitchen. He currently works at Prologue Films and has created titles for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man and RockNRolla. The treatment uses freeze frame, sepia tinted photographs, water colour, pen and ink wash and hand-written titles to create a vintage quality consistent with the Victorian period.

SE7EN (David Fincher, 1995)

Se7en is a 1995 American thriller film, which also contains horror and neo-noir elements. The now classic opening sequence to Se7en that helped rejuvenate title design in mainstream cinema. The dvd has a long video about the making of this sequence. The title designer is Kyle Cooper, who forges a black-as-midnight sequence that sets the pitch, plot and characterisation for the noir thriller. It is A stylised mash-up of scratched frames and fuzzed-up, glitchy graphics set to a remix of Nine Inch Nail’s Closer. In this article here in Empire Magazine, Kyle Cooper talks us through the opening credits.

TREATMENT IDEAS

Today we have a very brief lesson because of the whole school photograph. We discussed film opening approaches:

• using vintage artefacts to lend verisimilitude to a film opening
• using printed and written material like sheet music, letters, old telegrams, bills, postcards to tell the story
• using flashbacks to work in two time dimensions (past and present)
• using cuttaway shots to waeve the two narrative strands together
• using sound tracks like speeches, radio broadcasts, songs, artillery, bombing raids to set the mood and period
• PREP: write up what we did in your Production Log

FILM OPENINGS

We study film openings as background research for our own production.

The opening of Don't Look Now (dir. Nicholas Roeg) is a classic. The film is often voted as 'best thriller film' and its opening sets the scene, introduces the main characters, provides a shock and establishes enigma.

• The film cuts between a couple working quietly in their sitting room and their small daughter playing outside
• imagery of Venice, church stained glass and a dwarf dressed in red create disorientation
• imagery is used to foreshadow the death of the daughter as the father's cut stains a photo slide with his blood
• the colour red links the daughter, blood and the dwarf
• enigma

OPENING SEQUENCES: LOVE ACTUALLY

We look at the opening sequence of Love Actually (dir. Richard Curtis, 2003) and analyse the use of the voice-over. We make a list of other types of soundtrack used during opening credits. We notice how sound can establish genre. We discuss the use of authentic original footage. We brainstorm how the following could be used:

• radio broadcast voice over (news of kidnap) as used by Claremont students for the film opening about the assassination of JFK

  • television news broadcast voice over (local or national threat /disaster / warning)

    • vintage voice broadcast voice over (such as Winston Churchill) as used in student film Blitz, which we screen

      • song (screening of Ae Fond Kiss, (dir. Ken Loach, 2004) which follows Tahara's school assembly speech and anchors the film's meaning

YOUR PRODUCTION LOG

Welcome back to year 11! Congratulations on an excellent set of results for your last module.

In this session, we discuss your Production module and start your Production Log.