Film Opening Titles Deconstruction:

Deconstruction of the opening titles of The Perks Of Being A Wallflower:

~ For my opening titles deconstruction, I decided to look at The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, as I knew this film had a lot of opening credits that I could look at. Then I put the screenshots onto a timeline with the time that the text came up and what it meant.

0:00 - 0:45

0:45 - 01:17

0:17 - 01:45

The 10 minutes clip that I used is below.

Deconstruction of 'Sinister' trailer:

Deconstruction of the trailer for Sinister, how is it appropriate to the genre? 

~ Although Sinister is considered a horror film, I thought that a lot of aspects in the trailer were similar to those seen in slasher films. 

~ The trailer opens with a flashback from nine months earlier, with a montage of pictures with a news report playing over the top, describing the murder of a family. So within the first few seconds you know it’s going to be a horror movie and that the deaths will be described and explained in some detail. 

~ Another aspect is the mysterious character who appears to be connected to the murders as he is seen in the film footage of them but is never seen actually killing them. There are a few moments where the noise level goes from extremely quiet to a sudden bang or scream which is intended to make the audience jump and feel scared. This is a main trait of horror films, to scare the audience, make them jump and almost get inside their head so they imagine it’s real. 

~ The trailer uses a lot of flickering imagery as most shots are a lot scarier when only seen for a millisecond, especially when it’s a gruesome bloody image of a death or a shrill loud scream after silence. It also mentions that “children exposed to the images were especially vulnerable” which makes it even more frightening as children are seen as innocent and it seems worse when it’s happening to children. 

~ During the credits, it mentions that the film has been produced by the same people who made “Paranormal Activity” and “Insidious”, which are well known, successful horror films, to raise the expectations of the people going to watch it, so they know it should be as good as the other films.  Towards the end, there is a shot of an axe being dragged across the floor to show the deaths are going to be slow, painful and very bloody, confirming the horror genre. 

An alternative movie poster for Sinister.

Deconstruction of a Film Screenshot:

Deconstruction of a screenshot from 'The Others':

Out of the numerous screenshots available, I chose to analyse the one below from the film The Others, which is seen as a Drama, Horror and/or Mystery.

Screenshot from 'The Others'.

~ This is a two shot image from The Others with two children, a boy and a girl, in the centre of the shot, peering through the banisters of a staircase. Their faces are pale and they don't look healthy, almost as if they've been ill for a long period of time. They seem to be in shock, maybe by looking through the staircase, they've seen something that's surprised them and they seem scared.

~ This image has low-key lighting as the two children are the only things visible so the focus is meant to be on them. The boy is wearing old fashioned pyjamas and the girl is dressed in an old, white nightdress, hinting that the film was set a while ago. 

~ They appear to be clinging onto the banister, as if it is their source of safety and that it will save them from whatever they've seen. On the other hand, the way that they are holding the banisters resembles prisoners in jail so maybe they are the ones who have done something bad and are not allowed downstairs, which could explain why they are looking down.

~ This screenshot reflects the genre(s) as we don't know what's happened to these children and that gives an air of mystery to the scene. As their faces are pale, they don't look like 'normal' healthy children and that makes them slightly creepy as if something's wrong with them. Something major has clearly happened, as shown by their facial expressions and body language, which adds to the drama sub-genre.

Deconstruction of the Sinister Trailer- How it is Appropriate to Genre

With the very first glimpse of the sinister trailer, it tells the viewer that it is a horror with the quick change in shots, the loud, harsh sounds that are aimed to make the viewer jump, the subject of murder in the non-diegetic, off screen news report covering the changing images and the contrasting sound, immediately builds up tension.

With the text "9 Months Later" displayed across a black screen, the scene changes to show an introduction into the main story within the movie. A family moving into this house, ready to start a "new beginning", hoping that because they have moved, their lives are going to get better- this is a convention of some horror films, having the victims move away, or go on a trip to be able to have a "fresh start".

However, when the father, the main character, goes up into the attic- a cliché location for horror movies- he finds a box holding old, homemade films from the previous owners. After watching them though, the father finds that the films are recordings of murders of families that had previously lived in the house the man is living in now with his family. This twist in events is where the camera angles, editing and non-diegetic sound starts getting frantic, speeding up along with the intensity of the situation on screen, where previously, it had been slower, creating a calming effect to the viewer.

Clips and photographs of these serial murders, along with scenes of death, fire and destruction are shown, as a reference to the old recordings, building the tension that had originally started to build, but was lost with the "lighter" introduction to the story- stopping the trailer being emotionally draining for the viewer.

A clip of the scene where the father notices the same symbol within each of the home films is then shown, which develops into the realisation that the symbol is linked to this supernatural pagan deity that “consumes the souls of young children”, and that he is the one that has committed these murders- adding a supernatural aspect to the already marked horror genre.

Throughout the rest of the trailer are short, quick scene of strange occurrences, violence and weapons being dragged along the floor with each change in scene relating to the sound of one of the homemade tapes going around the wheel, making a repeating slapping sound, making the editing of each scene not smooth and unnoticed but disjointed and harsh, adding to the effect that it gives the audience of tension rising. All the while, a constant single sound is building, increasing suspense, until sudden silence is introduced, and all in view is a horrific sight of the fathers two children sitting next to two other, seemingly dead (from their appearance), children, to which the face of the pagan deity who is tormenting the family moves into the screen all of a sudden, making the final view of the trailer a “jump” that would leave the audience with the impression that it is extremely scary, but worth watching.
 

Everything within the trailer shows common conventions within the supernatural-horror genre such as “jumps”, supernatural occurrences and the revealing of a threat that together brings violence and destruction.

Below is the trailer being discussed:

Evaluation of Filming the Preliminary Task

During the course of this first trial filming session, my group and I had our shots planned out according to the story board that we had made, making it much easier to know what we were shooting to complete the “story” that we had made up. With this created story board, it also allowed us to film shots in different orders when the location, of which they would need to be film, was being used.

Easiest Aspects-

During the filming, the easiest aspect, that I found, was the creation of the scene, with all of the “good ideas” my group and I kept having of where people could stand, how things could be arranged, such as furniture etc, what editing could be done in different places, and locations of different scenes, etc. We needed to stay realistic and stick to a simple plan for this preliminary task. The idea development of our film opening, however, is not an aspect that I am worried about for our real filming.

Harder Aspects-

The harder aspect of the filming, that I found, was getting the camera angles correct, visualising the shots being placed together and getting a level shot, all of which my group and I were able to eventually resolve. The only issue with it was the time. We had the whole idea in our heads, with exactly what to do, but we had to rush the last few shots, making them perhaps have errors that were not seen within them. Timing will defiantly be a big thing for our group to manage in our actual coursework based project.

Problems-

We had to re-shoot a couple of times to get shots to be as we had visualised, but altogether, the filming of this first piece was very interesting, giving us an idea of what obstacles we will have to overcome when doing our coursework, such as the timing, and what extras we could add to the scene to make it look more authentic- within the mise en scene. It was also a successful first try of using the video camera and the tripod while looking at camera angles, lighting, locations and the story line, but with plenty of improvements still available to be carried out as we develop our skills in filming.

Reflection-

We now know that when doing our film opening, we would have to have every detail from the mise en scene to the lighting of the set planned and tested so that when it comes to editing, all the material that we need will be there, and we wont have to re-shoot.

Film Opening Titles Deconstruction of "Seven"

Se7en 

Above shows my opening titles deconstruction of the movie- "Se7en". Opening titles are the series of names that appear on the screen at the beginning of the movie, including the production company, leading actors, supporting actors, the title of the film itself, and many other things. This deconstruction, along with the other two from the two other members in this group, will give us a good idea of placement of opening titles when designing, planning, filming and finally editing our final coursework.

Genre Deconstruction of Film Screenshot- Quarantine

Genre Deconstruction of Film Screenshots

RAMAN:

Film Opening Title Deconstruction

RAMAN:

For this piece of work, we had to deconstruct a film's opening titles. I chose to deconstruct Insidious' opening because there were many titles. Each title had a background picture of a different place in a house, all in black and white and this makes you think of ghosts. Ghost hauntings and supernatural elements are some typical horror conventions which are added to scare the audience. Also, at 2:33 there is a shadow of somebody standing in the room but we cannot see their face - this could be either a person or a ghost. Anonymity is another horror convention, killers often cover their faces or attack in the dark so you can't see them and this oblivion frightens the audience. Then at 3:14, you see footprints which appear then disappear along the floor and this, again, makes you think that there is a ghost haunting the house.