Title Research: Lady in a Cage

While on the Art of the Title website, we came across a movie called Lady in a Cage. This movie’s genre is thriller, which is why we picked to watch its opening sequence.

• There are 13 titles displayed during the opening sequence of Lady in a Cage. Some of the titles have more than one name.
• The images that are prioritized in the opening sequence are the cars and other vehicles, the house, people on the streets, a dog that appears to be dead, and a letter.
• The connotations that the images carry are an eerie and rush feeling. Many things are going on in the opening sequence and it goes somewhat fast. This kept my attention very well throughout the whole thing.
• The genre is reinforced through the music that is used. It is very suspenseful and surprising at times. The genre was also reinforced by the edgy titles that were shown.
• The film establishes an enigma by ending the opening sequence with someone closing up a letter they had finished writing. It also establishes an enigma by jumping from many different things so it makes the viewer curious to what is going on.
• The strategies used to ensure the film appeals to its target audience is the music choice. The music makes the film very interesting and is very appealing. It makes the audience feel on the edge of their seats which them want to keep watching.
• Technology has been used effectively because everything goes together very smooth due to the good transitions. The editing has also been used effectively because the titles flow into the opening sequence and look very well with it.

Title Research: Red Lights

This movie was researched on artofthetitles.com.

• There are 21 titles displayed in the opening sequence of this film. Some of the titles contain numerous names
• The images presented are what appear to be things you would analyze. There are polaroids, photos of people, notebooks, blueprints, and things that would appear in a lab.
• The connotations given are an urgent feeling. The titles are constantly swapping from side to side making it feel like an utter importance is present. It gives a sense as if something needs to be solved and a sense of suspense
• The genre is reinforced through the use of music. The music is every intense and give off that suspenseful feeling. The way the picture are organized along with the editing of the titles adds to that suspenseful feeling.
• The film creates an enigma by the use of the pictures used in the title slides. The picture allow you to assume what may be happening without actually telling you which gives off that mysterious sense. The use of polaroids, people working, blueprints, and lab items give a sense of what may be to come.
• The strategies used to attracted the targeted audience are the way the titles are presented. The titles of the people working on the project shows random letters getting enhanced or the names swapping side to side which gives an intense feeling. The intense music is another strategy which adds suspense.
• Technology has been used effectively through the use of editing. The editing of the titles is properly used and the transitions into the next titles help why they’re trying to portray. The breaking parts of the letters blends in with what is going on in the background and that is done through editing.

Title Research: Splice

We researched this movie on website artofthetitle.com.

• There are 33 titles displayed in the opening sequence of the film. Some of the titles listed multiple names.
• The images prioritizes a sort of swampy feel. Bubbles appear which indicates their in water and what seems like veins or roots appears which could mean the title sequence is occurring in a body or a swamp.
• The connotations given off are a somewhat eerie feel. It makes the viewer wonder what the movie could possibly be about. The titles flow from one to another that makes you feel sick to the stomach.
• The genre is reinforced through the fonts they use for the titles. The type of music playing in the background also gives of a suspenseful vibe. The way the pictures flow with each other and are arranged also add to the suspenseful feel.
• The film establishes an enigma by not giving any background toe what going on. The music in the background makes you wonder why is going on and with use of the pictures such as what appears to be veins and the bubbles, it makes you wonder what’s going to happen and what could possibly be going on.
• The strategies used to entice the targeted audience is the music choice. The music is every incidental and mysterious. It gives off a eerie vibe which brings suspense.
• Technology is used effectively during the creating of this opening sequence. The editing used makes it seems like it’s one whole sequence flowing into each other. CGI is used for the background pictures and editing helps show the bubble effects.

Title Research: Panic Room

While scrolling through Art of the Titles we came across a thriller called Panic Room. It seemed very interesting from the beginning, so we decided to use it for our research.

• It had a total of 20 titles through out the opening sequence.
• The scenes of the opening title sequence alternate from a black screen with the name  of the company that produced it and then gave credit to all the main people who worked on it. Also scenes of the city, buildings, and busy streets.
• The way each title transitions to the next flows smoothly but makes it creepy and eerie. Also it sets the mood for the whole movie.
• The movie isn't that intense until the music starts playing because at first its just building but then they add the creepy music and diegetic sounds.
• The buildings and busy streets makes it difficult to understand what is happening or will happen in the opening scene. This will creates a feeling of strangeness, which is what the creators want the audience to undergo.
• The strategies used are orchestral and intense music to create a suspenseful feeling. Also the font used is a bit creepy and the settings are strange.
• They used birds eye view, medium long shot, wide shot, and two shot. Also included a fade in and out, zoom, tilt, and pan.

Title Research: Watch the Titles Website

   The second website we are researching is Watch the Titles. The website has multiple ways for us to navigate through and find what we’re looking for. It shows us many films from blockbusters to indie films. This website also lists the designers of the movies and films. In addition to this, we can watch opening sequences of our genre, thriller. It also offers director interviews where they talk about designing the title sequences. We are looking at this site to see another option as to how we can do our title sequences. The website was easily navigable which allowed the films to be found easily. We saw lots of different genres on this website. Our group researched what kinds of fonts work best with our genre. While researching on this website, we learned how to make the titles suspenseful. As well as how to keep the viewers on the edge of their seats during the opening sequence. We now know how to make our titles interesting and look appealing so the viewers want to keep watching. Also, how to merge the titles into the background. Overall, our group learned a lot about making titles using these websites.

Title Research: Art of the Title Website

   We are now starting our title research for our final project. There are two credible websites that we are going to use for our research. The first website we are researching is Art of the Title. We are looking at this website to learn how to properly make an opening sequence for our assignment. Also, to watch examples of the movie introductions of our genre. While looking through the website, we saw many different types of opening sequences. We also saw different ways to do them and the different movie genres. Our group researched thriller movies on this website. Since the genre we are using is thriller, we want to watch opening sequences of thriller movies. This will help us better understand how the titles correlate with the genre. Also, this will help us apply what we learned into our final task when in the making. We learned how to make the titles noticeable and easy to see. As well as how to make the titles more appealing to viewers. Our group learned how to integrate the titles with the theme of the movie. The last thing we learned was what colors would look best for the titles depending on what is being filmed in the background.

Genre Research: American Psycho

CAMS: Establishing shots are used to show where scenes are taking place. Zooms,  over the shoulders, and tracking shots are used to focus on the character an what he's doing. Medium, medium close-ups and close-ups are used to focus on what is happening. High angles and low angles are present during dialogue and murder scenes.

Mis En Scene: When it comes to the costumes and makeups, the main character is dressed as a business man with clothes you would see in that criteria and his hair is properly done. Lighting is dependent on the location, for example a scene is in a nightclub so there are a lot of flashing lights. The settings include his residency, the office space he works at, and places he's meeting at such as restaurants. Multiple scenes are in cars when the main character is going somewhere. Props used are everyday items and possible murder weapons.

Editing: Jump cute are used to show time passage. The editing is kind of choppy as it goes from one scene to the next scene that appears may be happening way later than the previous scene. Shot-reverse-shots are heavily present during dialogue scenes

Sound: Diegetic sounds are used, such as footsteps and slicing. Dialogue is accompanied by background chatter. The music fits in great with the scenes and flows with the story. The music accompanies the environment. Voice over is present where the main character is describing what he's doing or describing himself.. Ambient sounds are used to create a more "chills on your spine" sort of feeling. The music also helps to create the eerie mood. The diegetic sounds such as stabbing effects or loud squeals or even items hitting items enhanced killing scenes.  The sounds are what truly enhances this film.

Elements: The movie is about a professional business man who spends time murdering people and indulging in pathological activity. The movie shows what makes a man a monster. The movie was a thriller/drama/slasher. The movie succeeds in letting a man tell his story.

Elements I liked and didn't like: I liked the use of the music and sounds to enhance the plot. It sent chills down the spine. The idea of a man confessing to what he's done isn't shown until the end but is properly execute through voice over of what he did prior to the end. I didn't like how choppy the editing was at points or how slow some of the dialogue felt.

Genre Research: Limitless

CAMS: Mostly eye level angles were present. They were used to focus on the main character or important items. High angles and low angles were also present. Establishing shots were used throughout. Medium shots, medium close-ups, and close-ups were heavily used to focus on the main character, specifically during dialogue scenes. Close-ups were also mainly used during emotional, intensifying scenes. Pan.s and tracking shots were present a lot seeing that they were used to follow the main character.

Mis En Scene: When it came to lighting it played a major factor. The story revolved around a man who's struggling and once he takes a pill he gets more focused. Before the pill is taken, the lighting was more dull, as if a blue filter was placed. After the pill is taken, the lighting is brighter after, it makes the story seem happier, as if a yellow filer was placed. When it comes to costumes and makeup it also depends on the pill. Before the pill, the main character seems less properly groomed and his hair is intended to look messy. After the pill, he looks more well-manner and his hair looks proper. When it comes to props, everyday items are used but the pills are the main prop. Th settings are his residence, the city, and an office.

Editing: Jump cuts were heavily used to show the passage of time. Cross cutting and shot-reverse-shots were also used, especially during dialogue scenes. The editing made the scenes flow together and carried the whole movie. The editing was crucial in most scenes since it directed the effects of the pill.

Sound: Dialogue was one of the main sounds. The main character was constantly having conversations that carried the plot. Background, digetic sounds were used such as background chatter whenever they were talking in populated areas. The soundtrack was used during certain scenes and sound bridges are present during what you may call montage scenes, which goes in hand with the editing. Voice over is the most important sound, it is essential to the plot seeing that the narrator is explain everything that happened before the beginning scene.

Elements: The movie was a Thriller. It was suspenseful and made the watcher intrigued in the plot. The movie follows a man who's writing career is dragging, but his life turns around after taking a drug that provides astonishing mental focus. Various happy and dramatic tones are presented.

Elements I liked and didn't like: I liked the plot of the movie and the artistic choice of different filters depending if the main character was on or off the pill. I disliked that it seemed a little slow at times.

Genre Research: IT

Camera angles, shots, and movements: This movie contains mainly eye level angles, but also includes some high angles, low angles, and canted angles. The movie also has a lot of medium shots and close-ups. As well as some long shots and medium long shots. Hand-held, zoom, tracking, and flash pan movements are present.


Mis en scene: The costumes used in this movie are casual clothes worn by the kids and people, and the clown costume worn by Pennywise. The lighting is both light and dark. There are scenes during the day and also at night or in dark rooms. The makeup they use is the clown makeup that is used for Pennywise. The setting takes place is multiple places such as the kids school, house, and neighborhood. As well as in an abandoned house. The props used are red balloons, a paper boat, a yellow coat, bikes, and cars.


Sound: The sound in this movie is mainly dialogue and incidental music, but also includes diegetic and non-diegetic sound.


Editing: The movie IT shows cutaways, reverse shots, inserts, and eye-line matches.


Elements of the genre: This movie uses the feeling of suspense, anxiety, anticipation, uncertainty, a rush of adrenaline, and terror.


Liked elements: The elements of the genre thriller, that the movie had that I liked was the feeling of suspense and the anticipation because it kept me on the edge of my seat.


Unappealing elements: The elements of this genre that the movie had that did not appeal to me was the anxiety and terror.

Genre Research: A Quiet Place

• Common camera angles in A Quiet Place are high/birds eye view, long shot, medium shot, medium close up, over the shoulder, close up, and two shot. Some camera movements were zoom, tracking and pan.

• CLAMPS-
• A Quiet Place was filmed in an isolated place with just a house surrounded by woods. Also by a waterfall and the streets.
• The actors used old, dirty clothes and with cold weather outfits.
• They used dark make up for crying and looking dirty, blood for cuts, and water to make it look like they were sweating.
• Many props were such as flashlight, weapons(guns), bags, maps, lights, security cameras, televisions, radios, and household tools.
• The sounds they used through the film were souls effects like creaking, foot steps, and animal/alien sounds. Also there was orchestral music and high pitched sounds.

• Common editing used were flashbacks, reverse shots, jump cuts and action matches. The elements in A Quiet Place were the feeling of suspense, excitement, anticipation, uncertainty, surprise, anxiety, terror and a rush of adrenalin. Also the feeling not knowing what will or will not happen next.

• The elements I did like was the suspense, excitement and the feeling of or knowing what will happen next.
• I did not like the jump scares/terror and anxiety that i felt.

Genre Research: Thriller & Horror

   My group and I had to choose two other genres and research them. We decided to research about the Thriller and Horror genres. Some requirements we had to research about these genres were the common camera angles, mis en scene, editing, and elements.

         Horror genre:
* Common camera angles in the genre are pull-aways, reverse shots, close-ups, tracking, pan, zoom, wide shot, low angle, over the shoulder, hand-held, birds eye, and cantered.
* Mis en scene:
Lighting- low lighting, usually at night in the dark, shadows and shapes to create fear.

Costume- the victims are usually dresses casually, and the villains are dressed in particular costumes such as masks to disguise themselves.

Makeup- bruises and cuts to show damage.

Setting- somewhere deserted, abandoned and isolated places.

Props- weapons such as knives, axes, chainsaws, rocking chairs, dolls, creaking doors.
* Common editing in this genre are cutaways, smash cuts, jump cuts, and fade outs.
* Elements of the horror genre are the dark, scary places, spooky music, suspense, creepy crawly things. Some other elements of this genre include foreshadowing, fear, mystery, and imagination.
* Example films of horror are Halloween, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Annabelle, The Conjuring, and The Ring.
* Common sounds in this genre include diegetic sound, non-diegetic sound, sound bridge, sound motif, dialogue, silence/no sound, score, and incidental music. Sound effects are also very common such as footsteps, creaking doors, echo voices, and animals howling.
* The elements of this genre that I like are the suspense and fear because this is what makes horror so good and appealing.
* The elements of this genre that do not appeal to me is the spooky music.

        Thriller genre:     
* Common camera angles in a thriller are high angles/birds eye view, tracking, pan reverse, tilted, point of view, zoom and over the shoulder.
* Mis en scene:
Lighting- low/dark lighting but also light/warm colors. Also lights could be used to form shadows.

Costume- some costumes used are dark or black clothing, creature like costumes, masks, hoodies, and teared clothes.

Makeup- makeup can be used to make dirt smudges, runny make up due to crying, bruises and cuts. Also dark make up is used to look scary.

Setting- most thrillers are filmed in isolated locations, dark allies, haunted places and are also filmed at night time.

Props- there are many props used like phones, money, broken glass, fake blood, notes, and brief cases. Also weapons like knifes, chainsaw, household tools, and guns.
* Common editing like flashbacks, montages, slow mo, jump cuts, graphic matches, and action matches are used in lots of thrillers.
* The elements in a thriller is the feeling of suspense, excitement, anticipation, uncertainty, surprise, anxiety, terror and a rush of adrenalin.
* Some examples of a thriller are Get Out, A Simple Favor, Us, A Quiet Place and Split.
* Common sounds are animal or extraterrestrial sounds, sounds when walking, orchestral music and in general just sound effects. Also dark, eerie sound and sometimes just silence.
* The elements I like in this genre is the feeling of not knowing what will happen next and the rush of adrenaline because that’s what makes a thriller movie so interesting.
* The elements I don’t like are terror and anxiety because I’m just not a fan. 

Genre Research: Drama

In this project we had to research a genre, and we got assigned Drama. My group members and I had to research all the different aspects of this genre. We had to make sure not to limit the project to a single sub-genre. Some requirements we had to include were the common camera angles, lighting, movements, and mis en scene. We also had to include elements of the genre, such as the ones we liked, and the ones that did not appeal to us. Our group decided to split up the requirements and then share the information with each other. Once we each got our information, we got together and put them all into one powerpoint.

The Final Pitch

When we first started this project we had to come up with three pitches for it. In this blog we’re gonna be narrowing our choices down until we find the pitch we want to do. When we started to look at our pitches we decided to get rid of one of them because we thought it was the weakest of all the choices. This idea was about someone having a dream about a family member disappearing and then waking up to their family member being gone. We enjoyed this idea but didn’t feel like it would work for a two minute opening to a film. Narrowing between the choices was difficult because we did like all the ideas we came up with. This led us down to two pitches left.

        Our first remaining pitch is about a person getting drunk the night before and waking up with blood on their hands trying to figure out what could’ve happened the night before. This is a good pitch because it could create suspense. Audiences love when movies are suspenseful. The viewer would want to know what happens next. They would feel reeled into the plot. However, there are some cons to this plot. We don’t believe we’d be able to make it a two minute opening sequence. We also think the idea would be during the night so the lighting really wouldn’t be the best.

        Our other remaining pitch is a person planning an attack and commuting the attack but someone’s notices the attack. Will the person get ratted out or will he catch the person who knows what he did? We believe this is also a very good pitch idea. We believe this is a very suspenseful plot and like we said earlier people love suspense. We think the pitch would make people want to know what happens after the person sees an attack being committed. A variety of props could also be used for the scenes involving planning. We also think we’d be able to fit this in 2 minutes. The only downsides could possibly be figuring out how to use our surroundings to make the plot make more sense but we could make it work.

        Overall, we decided on the second pitch. The finals pitch is a person planning an attack and commuting the attack but someone’s notices the attack. Will the person get ratted out or will he catch the person who knows what he did? Filming with this plot will make it so that audience will be intrigued for the whole two minutes but still want more after it ends. This pitch seemed easier to do and more enjoyable with the props aspect. The suspense it can create just appeals to us. We are extremely excited to do this pitch. 

The Beginning of the Final Task

   Hello, my name is Madeline. I'm Currently a sophomore and 15 years old. I would say that I'm very friendly and hilarious. I love staying home and watching movies on Netflix. But I also enjoying hanging out with my friends and family. I often hang out with my family every other weekend and than with my friends, the weekend I'm not with my family. Throughout the year so many things gave changed like making new friends and learning new things in school. For the final task I will be working with Brooke and Leonardo. I would say we make a great team because every project has been just us three working together successfully. I can't believe were starting our final task, I'm so excited.

   I have learned so many new things in this class, even tough its only been around 4 months. When I first started this class I thought that all we needed to know was how to edit a video but it turns out theres so much more to it. Like knowing camera angles and movements. Because these help portray the idea of the shot. Also learning what mis en scenes. Another major thing I learned how to do better was editing. I knew how to edit before but only simple things like trimming a shot. Now I know how to use the tracks to apply sounds and titles. I'm very excited to learn more about the distribution of a film. Also how two different companies come together to produce a film.

   For this project we have to come up with three pitches. A pitch is a hollywood term to describe an idea where a film is encapsulated in 25 words or less. A pitch is usually one sentence. We came up with a couple of pitch ideas for this project. We narrowed it down to 3 ideas:

* "A person gets drunk the night before and wakes up with blood on their hands. What happened the night before?"

* "Person is planning an attack and commits it, someone sees and he can’t let him get away. Will he catch him or will he get ratted out?"

* "Person has a startling dream about a family member being taken but when they wake up they’re gone. Did they run or way or were they kidnapped?"