Analysing Opening Title Sequences - American Horror Story: Asylum Unfinished

American Horror Story: Asylum

These are the first notes that I got after watching the opening titles to 'American Horror Story: Asylum'. 

The pace of movement is quicker in contrast to the first season, this could have been done to represent the theme and nature of the show, as this is set in a mental asylum. This OTS is also longer than the first seasons, this could be implying that this is the better season as there is more screen time for the OTS. This is following the same order as the first season, this is following a pattern 

Analysing Open Title Sequences - American Horror Story.

American Horror Story Opening Title Sequence

American Horror Story: Asylum, Opening Title Sequence

Above are the opening titles to American Horror Story Season One. 

Below are the notes that I made about the opening titles for both season one and also season two, which is called Asylum. 

The notes that I first made when I watched the opening titles were very basic, however they outline the order that things usually go in, I noticed a pattern in both of the opening title sequences that also occurs in the third season that I have watched, however I have not done an analysis on the opening titles for this season which is called ''American Horror Story: Coven'' I will do an analysis of this when I have done a few more on different films and tv shows so that I have a wide range of genres that I have analysed. I will do this so that I can start to notice any patterns correlating in general OTS. I think that after this I will start to move onto the 'Film Noir' genre so that I can watch the opening title sequences and see if the same patterns apply to them too. After watching the first one again I noticed that the lighting is very minimal, however when there is lighting this is very strong and shows parts of objects at a time. This has been done I think to increase mystery and suspense, this is effective as this is bringing an interest into the show and this is going to gain viewers. This is a good technique to use as if the OTS is strong then this is going to gain lots of viewership as this is usually the first thing that is seen, as this is the opening titles. It is important that the OTS represents the show as this is showing what it is going to be like and show the theme. I think that the OTS for all three 'American Horror Story' series represents the show well as this is a dark themed show, with mystery and suspense in their story-lines. The OTS for the first season includes parts of the show in them and links to the show well. I am going to be analysing other opening title sequences in other posts so that I get a better understanding of the general order in opening titles. I am thinking of analysing; The Walking Dead, Seven, Game Of Thrones, Captain America, Dexter and Hannibal. 

Analysing previous photographs.

Last year (2013-2014) for my AS Photography I studied the genre Film Noir, for this I took a series of photographs, this is a few of them here. With these I tried to represent the genre using two characters from the genre, one being 'Femme Fatale.' For this I tried to use strong lighting on the aspects of the photographs that I wanted the eye to be drawn to. I think that I did achieve this, however I think that for my film this year I am going to use more dramatic lighting, but also have minimal lighting. For my film I have an idea of what I want to do, this idea does not involve many people, and the faces will not be seen and so the focus of what I want is going to be hands and other objects that they are holding, therefore I need to take into consideration how I am going to do this, and take inspiration from these photographs from last years photograhy project. I will improve my use of lighting so that it has a better effect on the film overall. I think I would also like to use film cameras in this and possibly use a photo taken on a film camera for the promotional poster that will be advertising the film, so for this I need to think carefully about the amount of lighting I am going to be using, this however does need to be similar to the film. I would also like it to be darker, unlike these photographs, this is because I think that this will give a better effect on the viewer and look more like a Film Noir opening titles. The lighting here is very bright and does not highlight and important aspects, apart from where I have edited it, this needs to be thought about when I am going to be filming and editing my video for the opening titles. I think that I need to do more research into the type of lighting in the Film Noir genre so that I can have the best possible video I can make. I think that the lighting is best for the third photograph, so I will try to stick to this one the most, as I like the shadows in this photo, I think this because this adds a sense of drama to the scenario, this is what I want in my opening titles. 

Continuity Task - Unfinished.

Annie Leibovitz - Unfinished

This is a series of photographs taken by the artist 'Annie Leibovitz'

Film Noir research

This was the most  popular film noir movie that was on imdb. This is called ‘sunset blvd.’

The plot summary for this is ‘In Hollywood of the 50's, the obscure screenplay writer Joe Gillis is not able to sell his work to the studios, is full of debts and is thinking in returning to his hometown to work in an office. While trying to escape from his creditors, he has a flat tire and parks his car in a decadent mansion in Sunset Boulevard. He meets the owner and former silent-movie star Norma Desmond, who lives alone wit her butler and driver Max von Mayerling. Norma is demented and believes she will return to the cinema industry, and is protected and isolated from the world by Max, who was his director and husband in the past and still loves her. Norma proposes Joe to move to the mansion and help her in writing a screenplay for her comeback to the cinema, and the small-time writer becomes her lover and gigolo. When Joe falls in love for the young aspirant writer Betty Schaefer, Norma becomes jealous and completely insane and her madness leads to a tragic end. ‘ (taken from the ‘sunset blvd.’ imdb page http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043014/ ) this film ends with tragedy and so this could be very useful to my work as I would like to add tragedy and pain into my work as I think this reflects the genre ‘film noir’ and this would also be a very powerful emotion to film. 

Photographs; trying out effects, and importance of lighting and composition.

This is one photograph that i took in the style of Film Noir, I think that this does represent the genre well with the use of composition, lighting and the editing that I have done to it. Which is shown above in 'gif' format. The task that was set was to take an ordinary fairy tale story and add a Film Noir twist on it. The story here is that the models are in a casino, with the use of mise en scene I think that this is recognisable. For this particular image I tried to focus on lighting, this is because with the research that I carried out, I saw a pattern with this. This is a very important part of recognising if a photograph/film is set in the era of Film Noir. One thing that I need to consider with lighting is if the brightness is going to be intense then this could ruin some detail in the frame. For example, the cards that one of the models is holding are not clear, this could become a problem as this could become un-recognisable, therefore possibly ruining the quality/effect of the image. This is also something that needs to be considered while editing, this is because while I was editing I used the brightness tool to enhance the dramatic lighting. However, I did not pay attention to the effect that it was having on the cards, this is something that I need to focus on more when it comes to filming and editing the opening titles to a Film Noir movie. In this image I think that it is obvious who is the protagonist in this setting, this is by the way the models are portrayed in this image. For example; the model on the right is clearly the main character here, this is because of the way she is standing, and the light is focused on her, this was done to directly imply to the viewer that she is the important character here. The light is bright and her full face is shown here and she is appearing to be stood in a very direct and strong way, whereas the girl on the right is covering her face with the cards, and the light is not as focused on her, in contrast to the other person. This was done to show that possibly that character is not as important to the story as the other one. This could also suggest that her character is inferior in relation to the other character. The importance of each character is shown well I think, with the use of lighting, composition, editing and mise en scene. One other thing that is important here is the angle of the camera and how this photograph was taken. This is a landscape photo, it is this way as this is supposed to be (in a way) a still from a typical Film Noir movie. If the photo was taken in portrait mode then this would be a terrible photograph because it would defeat the point of the task. This was taken in line with the faces, it was a direct shot and had no upwards/downwards angles. However this was using a zoom so that the faces were more in frame, as the camera was far back and I did not want the background to be shown in this as I think that this would have ruined the quality of the image. I also used a relatively low exposure so that any thing that the light was not focused on was not bright or seen well, as I knew that this would have made it easier to edit and would have overall improved the photo. I should take this into consideration when making my opening titles as this is something that I feel is important. 

BBFC Research - unfinished

‘’The British Board of Film Classification is an independent, non-governmental body which has classified cinema films since it was set up in 1912 and videos/ DVDs since the Video Recordings Act was passed in 1984.’’ This is from the official bbfc website. 

This is their own brief description of the work that they do. The bbfc categorize films and age rate them based on their content. This is done so that younger audiences do not see inappropriate content, which could offend or scare them. The age certificates are put in place to prohibit and protect certain audiences from seeing films that are often too mature for them. 

Film Noir

This is the definition from Google that I found for the genre Film Noir. ‘’A style or genre of cinematographic film marked by a mood of pessimism, fatalism, and menace. The term was originally applied (by a group of French critics) to American thriller or detective films made in the period 1944–54 and to the work of directors such as Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, and Billy Wilder.’’

However, film noir can be defined into sub genres. Which can sometimes alter the definition, but if the film is purely film noir this would be the correct definition for the genre. This genre is particularly interesting to me because they have a sense of mystery to the films, this is excellent quality to have in films because this intrigues the viewers and drives them to want to watch more of the film and of the genre. 

Sweded Film

The sweded film that I done was for 'The Fault In Our Stars' however, I have had some difficulty in editing all the videos together as they are not compatible with any editing software I have tried to use, this will be fixed over the weekend, as I will convert them however this is very time consuming and requires a lot of attention and so I have decided the best time to do this will be this weekend (beginning 20th September.) I have uploaded the videos to my youtube so that there is evidence that I have done the work. The fully edited film will be uploaded there in the next few days. The footage was filmed on the 11th September. 

Here is the link to the youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtnEe-PzLl8PVo1XkQ0K2iA/feed

The youtube channel contains all of the content I intend on using for my final film. 

Summer Task - Favorite Films

1. Captain America: The First Avenger 

2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

3. P.s. I Love You 

4. Dirty Dancing

5. Guardians Of The Galaxy 

6. The Fault In Our Stars 

7. Shaun Of The Dead 

8. Whats Your Number 

9. Safe Haven

10. Iron Man 3