As Media opening sequencesJosh Tregunno

Part 3

The Pacifichttp://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-pacific/

• There is a great use of extreme close ups and slow motion at the start of the opening when the graphite pencil is used, you can see the splintering of the pencil as it is being used

• He music that accompanies the images is quite mellow dramatic and sets the tone for a war film as it is quite sad as a lot of people die.

• Any moving shots are in black and white to represent what the technology would have been like in the time of the war but during the shots some of the screen starts to turn red this is to signify all of the blood that was spilled at these battles.

• The shots of the battles are mainly long and mid shots otherwise the viewers would not be able to see what is going on in the surrounding areas around the soldiers.

• There is a use of slow motion in some of the shots this can make the shots more dramatic as it makes the audience wait to see what is going to happen.

• There is also a lot of use of graphic match between the graphite drawings and then the real people the transition between the two is very smooth and makes the sequence more effective.

This is Englandhttp://www.artofthetitle.com/title/this-is-england/

• This is England is set in 1980/90’s England so its opening sequence deliberately has really low quality picture even though it was made in 2009 and they did have access to HD cameras.

• The opening sequence shows big events that happened in England at the time that the film is set to remind the audience of how England was at this time For example there is footage from the miners strike to the Diana and prince Charles royal wedding

• The colour of the sequence is quite saturated and fuzzy to convey the effect that cameras in this time had.

• The title of the film has quite a distinct font that looks like it has been worn down and old this is a representation of how worn out and old things were at the time this is then supported by the next shot by the graffiti and the cracked walls surrounding the men going up the stairs.

• There is then some mid and long shots of a concert to show to the audience what music people listened to and what clothing people wore just to still give people a sense of what time period it is

The Cardinalhttp://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-cardinal/

• The sequence starts with a close up of a church bell swinging making noise, the camera then pans down and just below the bell we can see an establishing wide shot of where our sequence is set.

• The colour of the film is as natural as possible for an old film so it does look very vibrant and colourful.

• The title the Cardinal appears pretty much as soon as the sequence starts which gives the audience a clear indication of what the film is called.

• There is then a lot of usage of long shots when following the main character but there are some use of different angles. Eg: A high angle shot looking into a pool of water for the refection of the character walking by, there is also a shot looking directly at the floor so the characters shadow comes into shot and then walks by, there is also use of an high angle birds eye view shot of the character walking underneath

• The transitions in-between the shots fade into eachother to make it seem more natural and not like a sudden cut .

• the music is peaceful and has no change in tempo or rhythm to make the transitions easier

• The credits are in plain white writing so that they are easy to read for the audience

Stranger Than Fictionhttp://www.artofthetitle.com/title/stranger-than-fiction/

• The sequence opens with the sound of ticking and an establishing wide shot of the planet earth, the camera then starts to zoom in to the earth, non diegetic sound of people talking on telephones and watching television have been edited in as the camera is zooming into the earth to resemble traffic.

• The strong use of narration in the sequence clearly explains what is happening and who the main character of this film is.

• There are some interesting camera positions like one inside of the characters mouth when he is brushing his teeth, then in the next shot the frame of him brushing his teeth gets moved and another one appears soon there is four shots of the main character brushing his teeth in the same frame.

• Writing has been added in through editing that the character cannot see, it shows how many times he has done certain tasks or how long they have taken there are also graphs along with these numbers purely there for the audience.

• During the whole of the sequence the main character only says two lines of dialogue and the narrator speaks for the rest of the opening.

• Apart form the numbers there is also a lot of graphics like protractors and lines marking the corners of certain objects going on in the background its almost like he is in a computer simulated game instead of a film.

Contacthttp://www.artofthetitle.com/title/contact/

• The sequence starts off silent the production company warner brothers comes up but sill no sound. The title “Contact” appears butt still no sound, this is to hold the audience in suspense for the coming of audio as it is quite unusual to have no sound.

• The sound suddenly jumps in with an establishing wide shot of planet earth, a lot of songs are playing at the same time which is supposed to represent earths radio stations that are being broadcasted into space.

• The camera then zooms out from earth, there is also an edited in lens flare from the sun to make it seem more realistic.

• When going through the asteroid belt the signal seems to get interrupted but then returns when the camera comes out the other side its much like a tunnel.

• As the camera zooms back the songs and broadcasts slowly get older this is because the radio waves take time to travel through space even though we are broadcasting new music now a light-year away you will be able to pick up broadcasts from world war two.

• On looking a nebula we the audience eventually stop hearing the broadcasts as we are too far away from earth as we keep going the silence continues until we have come out of our galaxy and a disoriented sound and muffling starts playing this is obviously the “contact” mentioned in the title this has been inserted to tease to the audience what is going to happen

• The whole sequence contains just establishing wide shots where no characters are actually visible until the very end of the sequence when there is an extreme close up of an eye I like the contrast between extremely far away to very close up