Art of the Title Activity - Evaluation
1) Summarise your film idea. Provide a brief synopsis and outline what happens in your film opening.
The idea of the film is told quite simply with the title; 'Followed'. The genre we aimed for was horror/thriller. After texting her, a girl is about to make her to see her friend. It is late after school has ended, and unbeknownst to her a man is following her. She slowly, naively walks the halls of the school but the large figure moves closer, producing a gun from his back pocket. A close-up of the soon-to-be victim's face indicate she has realised something is not quite right, then the last shot before the cut to black with the title is a point of view over the shoulder of the victim as a hand grabs it.
2) What kind of information has been included in your film opening?
We are given a sense of narrative in terms of our victim; she is on her way somewhere from a school, which we can see through the CU text shot and the scenery in the background. There is also a clear sense that the second character is 'the bad guy' through the enigmatic way in which he is shot with little reveal, his imposing figure and dark hoodie.
3) How do the titles link to the main film idea?The title we used was 'Oh No' from the website dafont.com. The messy, hastily scribbled feel they visualise implies panic, worry and danger approaching, which nicely reflects the narrative of the film and its idea. The written feel comes from a victim's perspective, and the white colour represents innocence, which contrasts well with the black background that surrounds it in the final shot.
4) Summarise the expected audience reaction. What should the audience be thinking by the end of your opening? Is your opening clear or ambiguous?We aimed to produce a questioning, concerned audience response through our use of limited reveal - enigma. The ambiguous approach we used would ideally cause the audience to ask questions such as 'who is this man and what does he want?', 'will the victim be killed?', and 'what happens next?', etc.
5) Identify three things that you included in your grid that are important in the construction of an opening sequence and explain their role in understanding the film.i) We included a CU of our victim to display her emotion and hopefully develop a clear sense of her character in the minds of the audience. The fact that there is a lot of focus on her is evidence that she plays a significant part in the film
ii) Another important part of our AotT grid were the titles. The font alone expressed a lot about the genre of the film, which I believe is absolutely key in understanding the basic elements of it. Through remembering conventions of the given genre and past experience of it, the audience are given the ability to form expectations and predictions which really involves and engages them.
iii) The use of a variety of shot angles and distances collectively creates a complete view of the setting. Without a clear idea of a film's setting it can be extremely confusing for an audience to work out where each subject of interest geographically is. The idea may be clear in the head of a director but for people who do not know the story or location it is essential to make parts of these obvious. It is also far less entertaining to watch the same shot types and distances for long periods of time so it is important to anchor your audience by moving around and avoid others disengaging or becoming disinterested.
6) How effective is your film project as an opening? Explain your answer.I think our project was fairly successful because I believe an audience would get a clear enough idea of narrative through the types of shots we used and the context in which we used them (e.g. the OTS hand on shoulder, CU displaying emotion). The genre is evident through titles and props such as the gun so our viewers can form some expectations and get involved in what is going on.
This success was hindered quite considerably by the limited control of lighting we had. As we shot during a lesson and within school hours it was difficult to make a convincing sequence with quite high key lighting all around in our setting.
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