Watchmen opening credits analysis

To gain inspiration for our opening credits, we watched the credits from the film 'Watchmen'. We have studied 'Watchmen' because it 's known for having a particularly good opening credits. We need to create an effective opening to keep the audience interested.

We thought it was effective as it text is well incorporated with the action onscreen, via the slow-motion.

Children's Film initial ideas

Genre: Animated Adventure
Narrative: Things come to life within the classroom over night, with out the occupants knowing
Characters: Teacher, Animated everyday objects, Students?
Inspiration: Toy Story, Wallace and Gromit, Small Soldiers


We will use a mixture of live action and animation

BBFC Classification

We have decided to make our children's film opening a PG certificate, this enables us to be more elaborate with our story line and also allows some more adult themes .

U: Suitable for anyone over the age of 5. It should have a positive moral framework. It should have offer any reasuring counterbalance to any threat or fear. It cannot include any bad language, drugs, weapons or sexual content.

PG: Suitable for anybody over the age of 8, if under the age of 8 it is the parents responsibility to decide if its suitable. Some discriminaton can be represented but has to be for an educational purpose. Drugs must carry an anti drug message horror or conflict must be short and resolved, more adult themes than a U and violence can be disscused but not shown.

In the title sequence we identified certain conventions of an opening sequence:

• Tile lettering shows parody of of old horror film
  
• Theme song/tune, up beat happy suggest the type of narrative to follow
  
• Introduction of main characters and location, achieved by the detailed view of the inside of their house
  
• Narrative established by props such as the birthday card
• Catch character motif within the theme tune
  

Long Shot
Reaction Shot
Close Up
Establishing Shot
Match On Action

Over all we think our preliminary task went well, our filming was good and our final edited project is good. We have learned how to apply certain filming techniques in a real environment and how to use the 180 degree rule effectively. This has prepared us with further knowledge of final cut and the camera gear. If we had to film again we would pay more attention to the sound and objects in the background!

Camera Angles

Shot reverse shot is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking "back" at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.

A match on action is a technique used in film editing, is a cut that connects two different views of the same action at the same moment in the movement, by carefully matching the movement across the two shots. It allows us to see actions such as opening a door from two angles.

The 180° rule is a basic guideline in film making that states that the camera should never cross the imaginary straight line whilst filming a narrative.

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