Research into Institutions, Film and Production Companies

The British Film Institute (BFI) is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to: encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom, to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and manners, to promote education about film, television and the moving image generally, and their impact on society, to promote access to and appreciation of the widest possible range of British and world cinema and to establish, care for and develop collections reflecting the moving image history and heritage of the UK.

A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio and video.

Production companies may be directly responsible for fundraising for the production or may accomplish this through a parent company, partner or private investor. They handle: budgeting, scheduling, scripting, the supply with talent and sources, the organisation of stuff, the production itself, post-production, distribution and marketing. Production companies are often
either owned or under contract with a media conglomerate, film studio or entertainment company, who act as the production company's parent company, together, this has become known as the 'studio system'. They can also be mainstream independent or completely independent. Production companies can also work together in co-productions.

Some of the major and notable film production companies include:

• DreamWorks Pictures & Animation.
• 20th Century Fox.
• Universal Studios.
• Paramount Pictures.
• Columbia Pictures.
• Warner Bros. Pictures.
• Walt Disney Pictures.
• Lions Gate Entertainment.

Planning & Meetings: Week #4, January 23rd - 27th

This week, we continued sorting through our recorded footage and began to compile a rough cut of our opening sequence, as we had a deadline within the next fortnight or so to meet for the first draft cut of our sequence to be ready in time for the film showcase carousel.

At this time, my group and I were feeling very confident as to meeting the final deadline for our film and we were looking forward to starting to produce the special effects and features for our opening sequence, as this would assist us in all achieving a higher grade.

Codes and Conventions for Opening Sequences

In a motion picture, television programme or video game, the opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There may or may not be accompanying music. Where opening credits are built into a separate sequence of their own, the correct term is title sequence.

Opening sequences need to follow the set codes and conventions in order to be successful in fulfilling their purpose, which is to:

• Introduce the narrative.
• Introduce the main character(s).
• Use a montage (in most cases).
• Use little or no dialogue (in most cases).

An example of an effective opening sequence is that of 'Se7en', which can be viewed below:

Se7en (1995)

Cast and Character Profiles

Jack E acts as our main character in our opening sequence, as a homeless man living rough on the cold, dirty streets of London. We instantly knew to ask Jack to star in our film because he's a very good actor and because he would be extremely reliable, do whatever we asked of him and would be willing to spend a day in town helping us out.

Patrick H acts as 'shifty' unknown extra in our opening sequence, where he is noticed acting suspicious at Trafalgar Square. Patrick was at the top of our list when it came down to who we wanted to help us out with our coursework, as we knew he's a friendly, reliable, willing personality to get along with and also starred in our preliminary sequence too!

Planning & Meetings: Week #3, January 16th - 20th

Over the weekend, we departed for London to begin shooting the scenes for our opening sequence. Although, it was bitterly cold and each of us had an early start to the day, it was a really fun experience and it felt great to finally be able to start creating our sequence.

Upon return to school the next day, we uploaded the footage we recorded and were pleased with the results and the amount of video and audio we had, which we thought was plenty for us to be able to produce a decent and respectable opening sequence.

We organised and sorted out all of our clips and deleted the ones which we believed were poor and not good enough for the cut and our film. Once we had completed this process, the various shots remaining totalled in an approximate runtime of roughly half an hour, which I was relieved to find out as this ensured that we had enough footage to devise our opening sequence, with a lot of editing and cutting down on times, without the need to travel into London again.

(click to enlarge)

Personal Response to the Brief

When I was told that we were to produce a two minute opening sequence to a film for my foundation portfolio as a group, I was really eager to get started and I already had a vague idea of what I wanted to create, although I was very keen to hear of the thoughts my team mates too.

As a group, we unanimously decided between ourselves that we were going to work towards developing a science fiction, futuristic film, as we knew that there is a big market, demand and fan base for those sorts and types of productions. We also know that we were keen to include both a male antagonist and protagonist, as well as featuring spilt screens, a soundtrack and voiceover.

I hope that my group and I are able to produce a somewhat respectable opening sequence that reflects our expertise, knowledge and skills relevant to the OCR AS Level Media Studies course.

Planning & Meetings: Week #2, January 9th - 13th

Throughout our second meeting together as a group, we developed our ideas further and made several changes to the narrative. We realised between ourselves that using a shed in one of our back gardens was not an effective or viable option to execute. Instead, we brainstormed and expanded upon some of our thoughts further, discussing the possibility of drawing and sketching a map onto the floor in chalk, but we eventually came up with the idea of using a piece of cardboard with images in place on it, acting as a map, instead of a 'crime map', which was a more ideal option to implement whilst filming in the winter in Central London. This now leads me on to mention the places of which we agreed to shoot our scenes and shots, these included: Millennium Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and Westminster, with the possibility of being able to utilise any remaining time by adding further landmarks and locations to our map.

As the meeting progressed, we established what our main character, a homeless person, would find at a location that was not shown on the map. This would be a 'shifty' looking man, smoking, all dressed in black, who remained anonymous throughout the product. He would later suddenly run off, dropping and leaving a piece of paper on the floor behind him with a note or symbol written on it, as we thought that this would create enigma, suspense, tension and mystery as to what was going to happen as time progressed in the sequence.

During this meeting, we also started casting for our characters and voiceover artist and completed and finalised our film's storyboard, as we planned and scheduled our dates and times to go to London as soon as possible to begin shooting our scenes for the project. I have uploaded scanned copies of our storyboard that we created for our opening sequence (click to enlarge):

Analysis of Credits Sequence

In a motion picture, television programme or video game, the opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There may or may not be accompanying music. Where opening credits are built into a separate sequence of their own, the correct term is title sequence.

Common opening credits order:

• Studio.
• Production company.
• Producer.
• Starring.
• Film's title.
• Featuring.
• Casting.
• Music.
• Production design.
• Editor.
• Director of photography.
• Story.
• Writers.
• Director.

Here is an example of a credit sequence included within a real life production:

Inception (2010)


In bold, above, I have identified the credits that I believe should be included within our opening sequence. As our product is only permitted to be a certain length of time, I thought it was necessary for us to only include what was important, as any other people who deserved to be credited in our film could be done so at the end.

Analysis of Titles Sequence

A title sequence is the method by which cinematic films or television programmes present their title, key production and cast members, or both, utilising conceptual visuals and sound. It usually follows but should not be confused with the opening credits, which are generally nothing more than a series of superimposed text.

Mesrine: Killer Instinct (2008)


Instantly, we are able to recognise who the two main characters are, as they are the focus of a split screen sequence of shots, where we accompany them travelling from one location to the next. Incorporated into the spilt screen sequence are the film's titles. Collectively, we thought that the use of editing to create such an alternative, very different opening sequence to most we had seen was very clever and ingenious, so we decided to take our inspiration from it. The sequence is combined with a rather nervy, orchestral piece of music, and this creates both enigma and tension as to what the main characters are about to carry out and what they may be planning to do. However, we noticed that a voiceover was not featured in this opening sequence and we decided that this was an element we wanted to include within our own work.

Analysis of Opening Sequences #3

Children of Men (2006)


The opening sequence to 'Children of Men' begins with a sound bridge from a black screen to a coffee shop , where customers are watching a news bulletin on the television. This instantly sets the scene and we are able to recognise that something of great significance is happening or is going to happen, where the customers are looking very concerned and worried about the reported event. The use of colour in this scene is very minimalistic, where everything seems dull, almost black and white. This is apparent to take note of as the majority of people, if not all of them, inside of the shop are adults and are no younger than this age, where being old and elderly is linked to both blank and boring colours, of which grey is. Another point to notice is that the news report is about the world's youngest person dying, a contrast to what we would associate these dull colours with. During this scene, we are introduced to the main character, who shows his authority by barging and pushing his way towards the front of the crowd to gain a better view of the television screen, which shows that this character is going to be important shortly after or later on in the film.

Analysis of Opening Sequences #2

Cleaner (2007)


- Films begins by fading from back to show Millennium Film's company logo.
Fades to black again and 'Millennium Films presents' appears in white font on a black background at an angle, slowly moving.
- The titles 'An Anonymous Content production' and 'A Renny Harlin film' appear after, but this time not on a black background, but instead with an establishing shot of the surrounding area, with the later not following the previously set convention of being displayed at an angle. This could be possibly to draw the viewer's attention to it, or to indicate that an event or change may be taking place soon.
- The establishing long shot then moves on to mid shot of a street, from about the character's waist height.
- An actor's credit then appear, stating 'Samuel L. Jackson'.
- This is followed by 'Ed Harris' as the shot of the continues to track towards one point. Perhaps something is to appear shortly?
- A woman who is carrying her shopping and holding some flowers whilst walking down the street becomes visible. When she reaches directly in front of the camera, the shot moves to another angle to show her entering a build. The camera is tracking forwards for both of these shots.
- This is followed by another actor's credit, announcing 'Eva Mendes'.
- The opening sequences then cuts to show the woman entering an appartment, once again to show another credit, saying 'Luis Guzmán', and as the camera tracks towards the woman walking through the entrance another two credits appear simultaneously: 'Maggie Lawson, Jose Pablo Cantillo'. In this shot, the woman is looking around her, as if she is expecting to see something. This indicates what may be to come.
- The shot then cuts to show a point of view perspective of someone peering around the corner of the wall into a door frame, and this then cuts to show the woman dropping both her shopping and the flowers of which she was holding. This is a clear signifier that she has seen or witness something shocking, perhaps serious or unusual. Perhaps the flowers she was holding were for someone ill, what may have happened to them?
- The shot returns back to the original angle of the woman, who is now holding her head in her hands. She is upset and shock by what she has just witnessed.
- Another title appears showing 'with Hehe Palmer' as the camera then tracks the woman from behind walking into the room. After the credits has appeared, the shot which is tracking the woman into the room then cuts three times. This creates the effect that she is staggering into the room in complete disbelief as to what has happened.

Analysis of Opening Sequences #1

Catch Me If You Can (2002)


Steven Spielberg's 'Catch Me If You Can' opening sequence presents the journey of an animated, cartoon-like male character to the audience. He continuously travels from each scenario to the next seamlessly, making appearances and then disappearing again, as if we are trying to catch him, as the film's title suggests. This clearly indicates to the viewers that the film they are watching will be about a chase, as the character is followed making his way through an airport terminal and attending high profile, swanky events, where you would associate a lot of money. I think that this style of opening sequence is very minimalistic and simple, and you can't really go wrong with it as the audiences' attention is instantly grabbed and from there on in, they are hooked on what is going to happen next.

Planning & Meetings: Week #1, January 4th - 6th

During this week, we held our first meeting together as a group and we decided on the genre of film what we wanted to create. Collectively, each of us agreed on producing the opening sequence to a science fiction, futuristic film.

Over the Christmas period, we were all set the task to create an individual storyboard for our own two minute sequence. When we returned from our holidays, each of us took turns to pitch and submit our own unique idea and storyboard to the group, where we would deliberate over what we thought was the best idea and which aspects we could extract from each of our plans to create a somewhat respectable final storyboard for our opening sequence. A particular influence of ours was the opening sequence to the film, 'Children of Men', as featured below:

Children of Men (2006)


Later on in the week, after discussing what the narrative could be for our opening sequence, we eventually decided upon a brief idea for the storyboard for our film between ourselves. The idea featured a man and his dog discovering a 'crime map' in a shed. We later developed this idea further, replacing the man with a tramp as we felt that this would enable us to be able to work with our storyline easier and gave us more scope as to what we could producing, providing a different edge to our film. A thought was put forward to the group that the 'crime map' included images of various different landmarks in Central London and that the final link and image on the map would show something that wasn't supposed to be there.

In our first week, I believe that we covered a satisfying amount of tasks and I was very pleased with the progress I felt that we were making as a group as it would provide us with the opportunity to plan the shooting of our opening sequence earlier than our peers, and in general, give us more time to be able to edit and add special effects and features during the post-production process.

Preliminary Sequence and Commentary

For my group's preliminary task, we had to create an opening sequence of a film entitled 'have you feed the fish?'. We were given a prompt sheet in which entailed a basic of outline of the narrative and what we were expected to produce, including the specified dialogue of which had to be said by the two actors and in which shot a tripod should be used. We had to decide upon our shot types, lengths and any costumes or props which we may have wanted to use in our opening sequence. For this, we created our storyboard outlining the basic ideas of which we came up with for our opening sequence, which is as follows:

Although we have covered the necessary required elements stated in the brief, we did encounter some problems which we did not anticipate beforehand and of which would not like to repeat when we come around to producing our final opening sequence. The camera we were provided with did not allow us to record sound properly, and for this reason our project was not as successful as it could have been. To ensure that we do not confront this issue again, we need to ensure that we have fully working equipment, including any additional add-ons of which we may need for this equipment to work, and are assured that we know exactly how to operate this equipment, before we leave to shoot our planned scenes for our opening sequence.

Instead, in order for us to overcome this problem, we decided that it would be a good idea between ourselves to include subtitles over our video clips and recordings to ensure our audience to be able to follow what was happening in the scene. In my opinion, I believe that this was effective in fulfilling its purpose in allowing the audience to understand what the plot was and to also enabled us to achieve an effect which created a scene of a atmosphere and let the viewer to question as to why we cannot hear the characters. Perhaps her feeding the fish wasn't so important after all?

Forgetting the aforementioned negatives, there were some positives to come from completing our preliminary task. I should mention one of these as our continuity editing. We utilised the skills of which we had learnt in class and lessons to create a smooth, realistic transition between shots of one of our actors running/jogging through the park gates in order to meet the other actor, as she was incidentally running late. The outcome of using this technique provided a clean, clear edit between our taken shots, and this added to the overall enjoyment and feel of our opening sequence.

Final Preliminary Sequence

The video embedded below is our final preliminary sequence, the opening to a film entitled 'have you fed the fish?'. We hope that you appreciate our work and enjoy watching our product, which can also be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=.

(please note: the subtitles included within the above

preliminary sequence have not yet been finished.)

Temporary video placeholder until final preliminary sequence is uploaded to YouTube.

Welcome to my blog for AS Media Studies!

Hi, welcome to my blog!

My name is Tom Malins and I am currently in Year 12 at Coombe Sixth Form, where I am studying Media Studies at AS Level :-)

Here, on my blog, I plan to document my progress throughout the course and foundation portfolio, in particular relation to the creation of my group's final opening sequence, including: analysis, research, ideas, planning, production, editing and evaluation :D

Candidate Number: 1547.
Centre Number: 14405.