Hello, this is my blog for my AS Media coursework, detailing the research + planning, production and evaluation process of creating a two-minute film opening
TWO TYPES OF TITLES: Inter-Titles + Titles on live action.
Title giving exposition and anchorage to the date and/or location. Titles will mainly always be edited in, being called non-diegetic titles, however there are examples of titles that are part of the mise-en-scène, called diegetic titles.
"More miserable than the most miserable peep show I have ever seen." – Jympson Harmon, Evening Standard (London), 1960 "Psycho is sicko." –- Picturegoer (UK), 1960 "Producer-director Hitchcock is up to his clavicle in whimsicality and apparently had the time of his life in putting together Psycho. He's gotten in gore, in the form of a couple of graphically-depicted knife murders, a story that's far out in Freudian motivations, and now and then injects little amusing plot items that suggest the whole thing is not to be taken seriously. ... Perkins gives a remarkably effective in-a-dream kind of performance as the possessed young man." – - Variety, 1960 "That's the way it is with Mr. Hitchcock's picture-slow buildups to sudden shocks that are old-fashioned melodramatics, however effective and sure, until a couple of people have been gruesomely punctured and the mystery of the haunted house has been revealed. Then it may be a matter of question whether Mr. Hitchcock's points of psychology, the sort highly favored by Krafft-Ebing, are as reliable as his melodramatic stunts. Frankly, we feel his explanations are a bit of leg-pulling by a man who has been known to resort to such tactics in his former films." – - Bosley Crowther, New York Times, June 17, 1960 "[Hitchcock] has very shrewdly interwoven crime, sex and suspense, blended the real and the unreal in fascinating proportions and punctuated his film with several quick, grisly and unnerving surprises." – - Paine Knickerbocker, San Francisco Chronicle, August 11, 1960 "Psycho continues to work as a frightening, insinuating thriller. That's largely because of Hitchcock's artistry in two areas that are not as obvious: The setup of the Marion Crane story, and the relationship between Marion and Norman. Both of these elements work because Hitchcock devotes his full attention and skill to treating them as if they will be developed for the entire picture." – - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, December 6, 1998 "This film is really a meditation on the tyranny of past over present. It's an indictment of the viewer's capacity for voyeurism and his own potential for depravity. It's also a statement on the American dream turned nightmare, and there's a running concern for the truth that physical vision is always only partial and that our perceptions tend to play us false.... Psycho is also...a ruthless exposition of American Puritanism and exaggerated Mom-ism. ... In method and content, in the sheer economy of its style and its brave, uncompromising moralism, it's one of the great works of modern American art." -– Donald Spoto, The Art of Alfred Hitchcock (Anchor, 1991)
TRAILER
You can find a low-quality upload of the full film hereand the the film divided into parts here. (below is the first part)
IDENTS:
One ident, the Paramount ident, lasting five seconds after a black fade-in, and the fades out.
.
TITLES:
We have a stand-alone sequence before the live action starts, just likeI observed in This Is England. There is a soundtrack accompanying the whole sequence, however unlike other films incidental music is used, signifying the horror, threat and mystery with high-strung music.
ESTABLISHING SHOT
We fade in to multiple landscape extreme long shots of the city, and then zoom into the main characters.
NARRATIVE, GENRE, EXPOSITION
We expect these two to be central throughout the whole narrative, and the female character is
REPRESENTATION:
The blonde female conforming to beauty standards, however doesn't have long hair.
This beauty standard still seen today in the media, like for example in the TV series House of Cards, which is viewed by many as quite progressive.
SOUNDTRACK
Only incidental music is used, all long-drawn and haunting to evoke fear and alert the audience.
I had a track covered by an independent musician that
was assigned to a record label owned by main company, so
just like with Duffy I had horizontal integration,
but very limited, more like the Arctic Monkeys in Warp's Le
Donk + Scor-Zay-Zee and Submarine. but arguably
even less so.
My film ended up being a 12 and PG-13, so I'm not
taking the same risk as an 18-rated film.
POSSIBLE POINTS OF INFLUENCE:
As I've seen in Warp Films, the danger of my film being
rated 18 can even increase my limited commercial success along
with the major setback of an indie and no A-List stars, however even
without an A-Lister and an actor who has some recognition in the US
(I would eventually choose Rachel Weisz), if one has a genre
that can appeal to a certain audience it can be successful, as
the Krays are culturally recognisable in the UK, and the gangster genre
will be more appealing in the USA in, the violence and possible
blood having similar appeal to that of horror. This can increase
digital streaming interest for teens.
TITLE
Director, 2009
PRODUCTION COMPANIES:Working Title, UK Film Council, Aramid Entertainment
Notice how a lot of the praise is on the double performance of Tom Hardy.
TRAILERS:
...
The opening sequence after idents and titles and before we cut to the main title has been made available on YouTube by STUDIOCANAL Australia.
INST
the-numbers.com graph highlights the downside of working-class characters in a UK set film
One of the production companies is Amazon Instant Video. An example of convergence with the film cycle step exhibition being challenged. The distributors providers/exhibitors are now also becoming producers. This is can be seen as vertical integration
The opening sequence after idents and titles and before we cut to the main title has been made available on YouTube by STUDIOCANAL Australia.
SYNPNOSIS
A clear exposition of the setting, 1960s London, and the narrative, the Krays brothers. The two twins are introduced as a rising force in the criminal underworld, however their differences aren't anchored in the opening sequence, but by the time of the opening sequence it is shown who we are meant to follow as the protagonist.
IDENTS
20 seconds you get the Studiocanal. Universal is the distributor but we don't get their ident. A look at the Universal UK YouTube channel shows that the conglomerate owned by Comcast didn't show that much interest in this film, which its box office shows. However, Working Title had much more belief in it than for example The Program, a film which flopped both internationally and in the UK with only a UK box office of 500km, which was not on their YouTube channel along with Grimsby from their most recent films.
Working Title started with promoting their films on YouTube with behind the scenes footage in 2013 with the adaptation of the hit musical Les Miserables. The Program and Grimsby aren't shown here, signifies not their lower importance.
TITLES:
There are very few titles, the rest were shown at the end credits. These only include the distributing and production companies as separate white on black captions
STUDIOCANALPRESENTS
IN ASSOCIATION WITHANTON CAPITAL ENTERTAINMENT
&AMAZON PRIME INSTANT VIDEO
A WORKING TITLEPRODUCTION
LEGEND
MISE-EN-SCENE: There is use of CGI for the city. The car is
glamorised, it shines, it's not clear whether it has been
editing. . There are multiple people in the background.
REPRESENTATIONS: When a text today represents (it
can never truly show what the past was like, just like any media
representation) an historical time period, it can be difficult to judge whether
there has been
But nevertheless, the constant repetition of 'able-bodied',
caucasian, heterosexual etc. characters in the media creates a normative effect on society.
SEXUALITY: Through the line "My Reggie", the left
Kray is signified as heterosexual, and so is the narrator, immediately
showing that there are more heterosexual characters.
Ronnie's homosexuality is not signified. AGE: The classic image of the gangster is The
Godfather, age is status there.
SOCIAL CLASS: These are working
class lads who rose up in the crime world. Is this a somewhat different
representation of class than is typical for Working Title? REGIONAL IDENTITY: This is closely linked with class and status, and the expectation of
GENDER: Bechdel Test? Decision to
focus not just on symbols of male power but have it narrated by a female
character
NARRATIVE, GENRE, EXPOSITION: From this line we expect
The Krays aren't clearly morally anchored heroes as the film
will show, however we will see that Ronnie has a more sensitive side. So here
he is called: "Bloodthirsty" and the smoke like a fire breathing
dragon seems to anchor he is the more malicious twin, and then Reggie
is called different. So this sets up an apparent
THE CENTRAL PROTAGONIST?: As
we transition to the main film, we follow Reggie as he asserts his
authority, meets his love interest.
In this opening sequence this is signified by the narrative
This two-shot that could signify closeness is made to look cold
by them not looking at each other.
SOUND: We get an audio
bridge of the non-diegetic incidental music
from the Working Title ident to the opening shot. We then get
diegetic
The track of the closing credits is foreshadowed
by this line:
Believe me when I say, It took a lot of love for
me to hate him the way I do.
This track also intertextuality references a Led Zeppelin song of the time period, also called Whole Lotta Love.
*Screenshot of Spotify*
This track is an example of horizontal
integration, Duffy is contracted with
