BFI Study Day

BFI Study Day

 

During my time at the BFI in London we were introduced to Pete Frazer, he told us a few ways on how we could improve our blogs, what to include in our opening sequences and also what not to do during them. We did this by being shown multiple opening sequences from previous students and then analysing them through what they could do better and what they did right. Before this however Pete "interviewed" two people who were in the media industry asking them questions which we would want to know; and afterwards we were allowed to ask any questions which were unanswered. Following this we looked at 5 aspects which should be included in our opening sequence, these were Genre, Narrative (Enigma), Setting, Atmosphere and Character. The Three films we looked at were as follows..

 

Napoleon Dynamite

 

Dawn of the Dead

 

Catch Me If You Can

 

The one aspect which was the most important during these opening sequences  was the atmosphere. We were told to add as many as 22 credits to our films to express all the different areas that went into making the opening sequence - people often miss the open credits which is why we were told this was important to note down. Another thing which we talked about was 'Foley', this is when sound is added post production, for example footsteps are always added afterwards. Pete also said how getting a mixture of actors/ages would be beneficial in our opening sequences, instead of using just sixth formers because it will differentiate our opening sequences from previous ones. We were told how our opening sequences should be at most 2 minutes long as a lot of people go over the limit, or sometimes don't even manage to reach the 2 minute limit. One last thing we were told is that we should always include appropriate music as sound is 50% of any opening sequence - having music which isn't appropriate for the opening sequence would not be beneficial.

 

 

Pete's Blog - http://petesmediablog.blogspot.co.uk/



Reservoir Dogs Opening Title Sequence Remake

Reservoir Dogs Opening Title Sequence Remake

We were asked to take an existing Opening Title Sequence and recreate it within a lesson. We filmed during the first hour of the lesson and then edited for an extra 3 hours throughout the week. We tried to recreate the scene as best as possible using Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro which are the school's media editing software.

 
Actual Reservoir Dogs Opening Title Sequence:

Remake Reservoir Dogs Opening Title Sequence:


Personally, I feel as if we addressed the task very well but as with most things there are some things we could have perhaps done better. Perhaps getting similar scenery seen in the actual Reservoir Dogs Opening Sequence, so outside in some alleyway. Also keeping mise-en-scene similar with clothes and props - we were not wearing the same clothes nor were we holding the same props, we sort of improvised to what was available to us, and this let down the mise-en-scene. In conclusion, I feel that with the limited time we had on this task, we done very well but we could have focused a lot more on the mise-en-scene as that is what let us down. I think from now until we start production of our actual Opening Sequence, we would have perfected our mise-en-scene and it will be a lot better than seen within our recreation of the Reservoir Dogs Opening Sequence remake.

Textual Analysis of Opening Sequences

Textual Analysis of Opening Sequences

Log Line

Log Line

 

In a lesson we learnt about Log Lines. Log Lines are essentially a sentence which describes the entirety of a particular film. For example, "a man picked up by a fishing boat, bullet-riddles and without memory, then races to elude assassins and recover from amnesia." This 'log line' describes the film The Bourne Identity. A log line/logline is a brief summary of a television program, film, or motion picture often providing both a synopsis of the program's plot, and an emotional "hook" to stimulate interest.

 

Another example is "With the help of a mysterious pill that enables the user to access 100 percent of his brain abilities, a struggling writer becomes a financial wizard, but it also puts him in a new world with lots of dangers." This is an example log line of Limitless.