BFI

On the 11th November, we attended the BFI in London for an AS Media Study Day.
In the morning, we had an introduction to the Study Day and met a Media teacher from Cambridge called Tom Woodcock.
Our first activity of the day was to watch the film opening title sequences to 3 different films, Napoleon Dynamite, Casino Royale and The Wedding Singer. In each of these opening titles we had to write about the genre conventions, narrative, character, themes and atmosphere.

NAPOLEON DYNAMITE

In this film opening title sequence, the genre seemed to be a comedy, as there were lots of different foods which was quite amusing. And the things that were happening were qwerky. There was no narrative in this sequence but there was a song playing in the background. The character seemed strange and weird and of not a very high class. There was no obvious theme as the only things you could see throughout the sequence was mainly food and hands. Finally, the atmosphere was very strange as it leaves the audience clueless as to what is going to happen in the film.

CASINO ROYALE

In this film opening title sequence the genre was clearly an action thriller. This was conveyed through the use of guns, fighting and blood. There was also no narrative in this title sequence. The plot point was to kill people which was shown through the shooting with the guns. The character (James Bond) was shown as a spy as he was fighting and shooting people. His facial expression was very serious. The themes that I noticed were death, playing cards, gambling and risk. Finally, the atmosphere was tense and made the audience exhilarated and suspenseful.

THE WEDDING SINGER

In this film opening title sequence, the genre was a romance comedy as the location is a wedding and everyone is happy and dancing. The plot point that I saw was the singer who sings at weddings. There was also no narrative in this title sequence. The character was introduced as a singer. He was dancing and was very energetic and humorous. The themes that I thought were introduced were parties, weddings and happiness. The atmosphere was incredibly upbeat, funny and happy.


After this activity, Tom Woodcock discussed the anatomy of the title sequence and introduced people such as Saul Bass who made very stylish title sequences. Then, we had to think about colour, lighting, font, framing, costume, props and setting in title sequences. This was very helpful as it gave us ideas and inspiration for our opening scene. After lunch, we had a Q&A session with famous actor and director Dexter Fletcher.

This is one of Dexter Fletcher's films 'Wild Bill'. The plot is a man named Bill who gets released from prison after 8 years and goes home to his 2 sons who have been abandoned by their mother. Dexter Fletcher told us his ideas about this film, He told us that he always wanted to make a Western film so used different parts of Wild Bill to show a Westernised modern film. For example, a lot of the camera angles are low down which is familiar in a Western film when the camera shows a close up of a cowboy's gun. Dexter also told us due to the low budget the prison was based on a island but was in fact only the Isle of Wight. The rest of the film was filmed in East London and showed many examples of life in London for the youth in the opening scene such as one of the boys who was only 11 having a hangover in the morning and a group of young teenagers standing in the street looking very intimidating.

Another film that Dexter Fletcher recently directed is the 2016 film Eddie the Eagle. When Tom Woodcock asked Dexter Fletcher about the real Eddie the Eagle and how Fletcher portrayed him, he said, "it's more of a makeover for his legacy. I don't think he was treated fairly. I didn't view him fairly but that's just how he was portrayed, when I asked him about this film he was embarrassed to show his family which is fair enough". This was one of Fletcher's most successful films. After Fletcher spoke, Tom gave the audience a opportunity to ask him questions so I asked him how he finds all his cast. He told me he knew people from when he was an actor and all you have to do is ring the casting directors and ask them for the actor or actress to be in their film. I did not know this before so it was very useful and interesting for me.


After talking to Dexter Fletcher, we had lots of ideas and inspiration which was very helpful for our final piece.
We then had our final session of discussing how to make the film opening with Tom Woodcock and he gave us 10 steps to the best results which are very useful, they are:

1. TAKE STOCK 
2. SET UP A BLOG
3. BUILD UP SKILLS
4. INVESTIGATE
5. IDEAS
6. PLANNING
7. THE SHOOT
8. EDIT
9. EVALUATION
10. ENJOY YOURSELF

Some other useful tips that Tom gave us were:

• Don't shoot in too many locations
• Limit your colour palette
• Control your space
• Use lighting to set the mood/atmosphere
• Be consistent with lighting
• Only use 1 or 2 fonts
• Keep consistency of size, colour, transitions and spacing
• Don't make the font too big
• Don't forget to leave negative space for titles

Overall the study day was extremely useful and I learnt lots of different techniques and ways to film our opening scene and have lots of ideas.