Game Of Death and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly title sequence openings

Two further title sequences that i have analysed for a presentation are here:

Game Of Death is a 1978 Martial Arts-Thriller film starring Bruce Lee. The film was finished several years after Bruce Lee’s death in 1973, and the title sequence at the beginning portrays scenes from some of Bruce’s older films in his memory. A medium shot is first used at the very beginning of the sequence to show Bruce Lee in action during one of his older films, this shot is used to show the audience who the film is revolved around and how good Bruce Lee is.

When the main cast are shown during the sequence close ups are used to show the audience who in the film they are. The colour of the background when a clip is not being shown is very black to portray mystery and possibly death, as Bruce Lee died years before the films release. The colour red is used when Bruce Lee’s body is faded in at the start of the clip also to convey death as mentioned before. The diegetic sounds are the grunts and kicks from Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris in their fight at the end of the sequence, along with the sound of the nunchucks that Bruce Lee makes at the beginning.. The non-diegetic sounds are the music (Game Of Death Theme) all the way through the clip, and the huge grunt from Bruce Lee at the start. There is also an extreme close up of Bruce Lee’s eyes in the sequence to show that he is possibly scheming.

Games such as darts and poker are being shown throughout the clip to presumably work with the name of the movie. The pacing is fairly slow until the fight scene at the end of the sequence which helps build suspence and tension during that clip. The font of Bruce Lee is very bold and stood out compared to the font in the rest of the clip to show his power and preseance in the movie. When the name of the villain in the movie is shown, it is in bright red to give away the fact that he is bad in the movie, as red indicates death, blood or danger.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-gzly7lqP8

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is a 1966 Spaghetti Western film starring Clint Eastwood. There are many technical codes in the movie which I will now go into detail with. The only movements in the clip are animated ones of a cowboy and the rest are still pictures of mainly of characters involved in the film. Close ups of the film’s main characters are shown when their names are displayed to give the audience a picture of who they are. There are also long shots of scenery and a train along with one of a bridge, these are enigmas as it gets the audience to think how the train and bridge are involved in the film.

The colour red is being used a lot of a simple reasons, Westerns means guns which means shots which ultimately means blood. There is a lot of shooting and deaths in Western films and as The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is regarded as one of the best of all time, it is going to have shooting and gun fights in it. The font is done in the same format as all of the three in the “Dollars Trilogy” by Sergio Leone are done, it is fairly scruffy and when certain names come up they come up in the same way during the title sequence of all three movies.

There is no diegetic in the entire sequence. There is however non-diegetic sound in the theme of the movie and the whistling, these also with the constant gunshots during the sequence. With the gunshots constantly firing and the whistling also happening it helps give the impression that possibly the main character in the film doesn’t seem scared or worried by guns and shooting in the movie. The pace of the shots is often quite quick to correspond with the gunshots occurring at the same time as the music. The setting is in a desert which is typical of a Western. The posture of the characters when they are shown are neutral which possibly shows they are professionals due to the situation of the gunshots and they are acting natural.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG1fmfZGuWw

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Creep and A Fistful Of Dollars title sequences analysis

These are two of my analysed title sequences that i worked on early in the course:

Creep:

Creep is a 2004 English Horror film. The opening sequence is quite frightening and scary to portray the image of how brutal and horrific the film is. First of all the music begins off very daunting, it gives off a very creepy effect and a mysterious feeling where it tries to make the viewer guess what is going on. The camera work is very clever how it makes almost everything seen a very bright yellow colour but only exceptional eye sight would be able to tell the narrative from the beginning as everything is very blurry.

The entire clip is very bright with the lighting hard and well done. Shadows can be seen from a lot of objects such as knives and doctors materials that glimpse the pieces of blackness through the yellow lighting, this is to give a very sinister and mysterious effect to the viewer watching. The font is also bright yellow with often blackness in the background while the music continues giving off a very frightful feeling, as the audience cannot see what is happening.

Blood is spotted at the start of the sequence next too and on a knife, which acts as an indicator to the audience that some kind of stabbing has occurred. The only other colour that is spotted at the beginning of the sequence except black and yellow is red, which immediately tells the viewer that danger or death is happening.  Someone wearing uniform then appears with doctor materials such as certain knives that tell the audience that the scene is possibly set in a hospital or medical room.

The person wearing this uniform is then seen to be chasing a woman with blood around her as screaming begins. The audience is now immediately told that the person in green is the antagonist of the sequence. After this has been shown the music builds rapidly for suspense as the woman is running away before finally coming to a climax and turning to darkness that gives away the fact that the woman has been killed. The title of the film is then portrayed.

At the beginning of the sequence the camera is constantly panning around showing different sections of the room (although they are very bright and blurry). Close ups of the woman’s face are seen at the end of the clip to show how scared she is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWHDjFZX19A

A Fistful Of Dollars:

A Fistful Of Dollars is a 1964 Spaghetti Western film. The opening sequence begins off with a lot of red shown which indicates blood; an animated shadow of a cowboy is then shown riding a horse of which you can also hear through the sequence. The red screen continues as the cowboy is riding to indicate that a lot of blood may be on his hands, maybe that he has killed a lot of people or he is an exceptional gunslinger.

Whistling then begins while the cowboy is riding and you can still hear the horse galloping. The combination of the horse and the whistling with the red in the background possibly gives away the fact that this cowboy in particular is a very good gunslinger with possibly a cool attitude. When the names then appear of the actors/actresses in the movie they are followed by the fire of a gun that gives a dramatic effect of a typical gunshot from a Western movie.

A bunch more cowboys then appear and begin shooting at one another and killing them, this happening at the same time of the soundtrack of the whistling continuing and the horses galloping with the gunshots. The camera often stays with the original cowboy and tracks him to keep the audience up to date with which one he is.

A lot of gunshots are fired with the titles flickering on and off and the cowboys fighting until eventually one is left galloping just like the beginning. This indicates that the original cowboy is the only one standing and a sense of joy is given to the audience who would realise it. The music gets louder and more intense at the end for effect as the cowboy gallops into the sunlight before the sequence ends and the film begins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wtx3inwCY4&feature=related

Blog introduction

Above is my AS Media studies blog. my blog will consist of essays on Thriller films in general, questionnaires, storyboards, shot lists and more pieces of work that i will produce when making my Thriller opening which will be titled "The Abduction".