9 Screen Shots - Catch Me If You Can

For homework, I was told to analyse 9 frame shots from the opening title sequence to "Catch Me If You Can" 

Animation

The title sequence is all animated, with no actual actors in it, however, you can tell who the main characters are by several different factors which are that the main characters in the title move across the screen, they are more animated then the background people (i.e they show real life characteristics, moving their head so they can look around, opening doors, changing clothes, the way they walk). You know exactly who the main characters are by how they change from one place to the next and the way you feel you are following the two characters who are walking between places gives you that sense that they are important to the plot of this film. 

Visual Effects Used On The Titles
In all of the titles you will see in the opening sequence, you will find that some letters have a line that goes down though the scenes. These are a very simple animation yet this helps brings the sequence together as it links some of the locations of the opening sequence together. It also appears to be involved in some of the main characters actions, for example the character climbs up a pool ladder made by the drop downs made by the name on the screen. This helps keeps the audience interested. The main title is very simple yet quirky with one of the words floating away by an airplane. This leads the audience wondering why the main characters are in an airport and why? 










Font Used On the Titles

The font on this opening sequences is very smooth, relaxed, calm. Although the animation in the background is quite fast and upbeat, the title fonts show that the characters are quite calm and care free. The way the font also is positioned and the animation on the titles, it appears that not everything is as it seems. 




Style Used On this Sequence

The style for this sequence is a cartoon style. The cartoons in this sequence is different to other cartoon styles as it is a silent cartoon. However, there is music that overlaps the cartoon like scenes which picks up momentum when the main characters are dashing around in the sequence. The cartoons are also a bit sketchy and a bit gritty. This could indicate that the cartoon characters are a bit unpredictable as well as mysterious. 




Imagery In The Sequence

The imagery in this sequence are cartoons but they are also very brightly coloured in some shots. There is a lot of black involved in the title sequence which shows the darker side of this film, for example the characters are in most shots black to stand out and to show that they are mysterious as you don't know what they are up to. The bright colours keep the audiences attention to the screen as they constantly changed between the shots. They also use lighting within the cartoon to make you wonder why the main characters are lurking about in the shadows.




Editing Used Within This Sequence

There are a lot of separate shots of the cartoon characters and their environment. The scenes are cropped right down and some are one after the after so it has a very good flow of continuity. The text as well are edited into the shots to help build the frame of the shots together as they are within the images themselves, for example the main title "catch me if you can", the word "me" fades away like a cloud when the airplane flies by. The colours as well are always changing throughout every clip. 

Conventions Of The Genre

This lesson, I had to do some background research on the different aspects and characteristics of this genre. I also produce a mind map using "Bubble.us" to show all the different key points there are to defining a thriller.

I then produced a Mood Board of different images that to me represents the genre. By doing these tasks, i took on board some different ways of thinking of my own ideas for things such as locations, props, characters and costumes. 

Working with cameras ....

Today, we began by doing a mini quiz on our previous homework. From there, we looked at different techniques when filming our scenes. The 3 different techniques we learnt today were:

1. Match On Action
2. 180 Degree Rule
3. Shot Reverse Shot

I have posted already what these are and examples of them. We were then shown a scene from the film "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels". 

From the scene we were shown we had to cut the whole clip into 9 screen shots and to recreate using our 9 screen shots to create a scene using the techniques we have used as well as previous knowledge. i.e angles. 

In small groups of 4, we had about 15-25mins to work on this piece and then to use the editing program, Final Cut, to piece the scene properly together.

(Will add 9 screen shots when i can get them of the other members of my group) 

Continuity

In today's lesson, we learnt about continuity which is where a scene flows after editing. There are three types of continuity: 


1) Match on Action: Where the scene flows continuously through editing two scenes together. The action is continued through the two different scene which links the whole piece together. Here is an example of match on action. 

2) 180 degree rule: It is the invisible line in which peoples eyes met. You can NEVER break this line. 

3) Shot Reverse Shot: Where one character is shown looking at another character from over the shoulder. For example you can see that two people are talking to each other but the camera is over one persons shoulder. The connection between the characters is there but you see it in a different way. 

"Dirty Harry"

Today we looked at mainly the opening titles of a sequence. We looked at different films with different opening titles. Our group looked at "Dirty Harry" and analysed it, discussing what makes this film a thriller. From there, we used a program called Final Cut. This program is used to edit pictures and clips into a film. We will be using this program in the future to edit our opening sequences. By doing this session on the program Final Cut, i feel more comfortable editing footage. After producing our title sequences, we went through the homework and as pairs we were assigned a title sequence which we then had to break down into 9 shots and analyse the sequence. 

First lesson.....

Today was the first lesson in AS Media. We got straight into what we were going to produce and the time scale of when all the parts of the work needed to be completed by. We found out that we would be focusing on the topic of Thriller opening sequences. We would be making in groups our own opening sequence which would last approx 2minutes. We did an activity which we split into groups. We had to watch an opening sequence of a film and write down all the elements that were put into that sequence which made it straight away tell you that you were about to watch a thriller i.e mysterious figures, dramatic music, distorted sounds, mystery and suspense. After break we look at the cameras themselves. We looked at the settings and how to get the best shot for certain angels. We also learnt the different angels and shots before going of into small groups and making a very quick mock up of a opening sequence. We were to then edit it next lesson.


  I feel very comfortable with my classmates and my teacher and the task at hand. I love thrillers and watch at least 1 almost every night so this is very up my street.


:D