"If you're first page doesn't give you a hard-on, you should throw the damn thing away."

- Sam Fuller

We watched a documentary about title sequences in class. Through it, we learnt the following:

In your title sequence, it is important not to give everything away in the first five minutes. Alternatively, if you make your sequence too long and complicated, there's a risk that you'll never answer the questions established in it. The sequence must give some details to start the story but not give everything away for fear of losing suspense.

The title sequence from Se7en Told a story, introduced you to the obsessive nature of the protagonist, and foreshadowed the events of the film.

Se7en's iconic title sequence

For the opening for his movie, A Touch of Evil, Orson Welles wanted to plunge the audience into his story without giving them time to prepare themselves. They put a score and credits onto the sequence because they did not understand what Welles was trying to achieve, much to his disappointment. Showing the end at the beginning of the film is a common trait of film noir.

Welle's opening scene for A Touch of Evil

Thriller Inspiration

On Friday, we looked through the title sequences of various films similar to our idea. We also extensively evolved our idea through group discussion.

Our Idea

Our current idea is an adaptation of our previous One Way Trip to Mars idea.

A man is sitting in his room, setting up a camera on a tripod facing himself. He sits down as the camera starts recording and speaks into it explaining why he wants to go to Mars - he is recording a big-brother style audition tape for a television show set on the red planet. We cut from him filming himself to the actual recorded footage. We then show several different shots of other possible contestants, satirizing actual big brother personalities. After cutting back and forth between different shots of about four different characters, we go back to the original man. We cut to a board meeting where several men in suits are gathered round a monitor, showing his tape. They look at each other and nod before cutting to the title: 'One way trip to Mars'

Below are a few actual Big-Brother audition tapes which we took inspiration from.





Also, below is a thriller done by a group a few years ago. I liked they way in which they only had a few characters but cut back and forth between them. I'd like to inject a similar dark humour into our piece.

[Insert embedded video here]

Finished Prelim

Editing the Prelim

As I was working in a separate group from the other members of the filming of my prelim, I chose to edit it on my own - after having been shown the basics of the editing software (Final Cut Pro) by Matt. I learnt how to organize clips, cut them and arrange them onto the timeline.

I found the editing process to be very interesting and enjoyable. I was fascinated by how you can show various different clips shot at different times and still have them weave seamlessly into one. I was also interested by how much you can change a sequence just with the editing.

I will upload the fully edited prelim in a later blog post.