Art of the Title Evaluation

1. Summarise your film idea
   Our film 'Clarence' is about a serial killer who was driven to insanity by the murder of his own daughter when she was young. Therefore now, in some twisted sort of revenge, poses as a caretaker in a school where he targets and kidnaps teenage girls and treats them like babies.
2. What kind of information has been included in your film opening?
   The film opening actually gives a large insight into the main story behind the film. Shot 1 reveals that he has handpicked targets which stem from an obsession with young girls and Shot 2 shows he has quite a systematic way of selecting his victims. Shot 3 shows a teenage version of the girl in the shot before applying makeup quite innocently, although this shot has a lot brighter lighting that the two previous shots, there is a big sense of foreboding as we know she has been selected, this ominous feeling is carried on into Shot 4 and intensified as the audience can see what is going to happen to her before she does. Shot 5 is taken from a high angle showing a character who we can now assume is 'Clarence' dragging the body of the girl from the previous shots into some sort of dungeon which reveals it is part of a school as it is close enough to drag her, otherwise he would've had to transport her by other means. Shot 6 is quite eerie as its very dark lighting and only has children's toys in the frame, this shot underlines his obsession with children after the passing of his late daughter. Shot 7 links back to Shot 1 showing the 2 girls that he has targeted sitting with distressed facial expressions and dressed as kids but you can't tell any other sinister things he may have in store for them. The only clue we get is from the extreme close-up in Shot 8 where the eyes of the girl are still open and glazed over looking very scared so we know she is alive and the torture isn't over.
3. How do titles link to the main film idea?
   The titles are in chiller font which looks quite chilling and with the red colour looks like dripping blood which is quite terrifying, this all forms a strong link to the horror genre we placed our film in.
4. Summarise the expected audience reaction.
   Our aim was that after watching the primary sequence, the audience would feel that 'Clarence' is a very twisted, scary film. It would also create suspense about what happens next as it may appear that a lot of interesting details have already been given away so it poses the question in the audiences mind 'how bad can it get?' In addition, the audience should hopefully be intrigued as to what the character behind the mask looks like and who he is when he isn't wearing the mask.
5. Identify three things in your grid that are important in the construction of an opening sequence and explain their role in understanding the film
   1) Making the genre clear from the very beginning so the audience immediately know what type of film they are watching. We achieved this with the characters  setting, lighting and titles.
   2) Showing a variety of differently lit at different angles help maintain the audience's attention, we used high angle shots, over the shoulder shots, close ups and extreme closeups in our sequence in dark and well lit areas. Although its a horror, having bright lights before dark lighting forms a contrast which strengthens the usage of the dark light .
   3) Having the title at the end is important as it shows everything leading up to it and it makes it very bold and also tells the audience the name of the film.
6. How effective is your project as a film opening?
   In my opinion our film opening is very effective. It shows the audience what they are yet to see in the film whilst at the same time creating questions in their mind such as; who is Clarence, how does he have their pictures, why is he doing this and what else can he do? These questions will prompt the viewer to continue watching which is the main aim. It also starts to build up relationships with charectars, for example we feel empathy towards the girl in Shot 4 as she is walking straight into her demise but we are then given hope when we see she is alive in Shot 8, this also makes us want to continue watching to see what happens to her next.
   As an improvement we could have put the shots in non chronological order to allow the audience to make sense of it themselves, it would've also given less away.