X GENRE CONVENTIONS1 Titles, Idents, Production Context

I looked at some zom-rom-com genre specific movies such as, Zombieland (Fleischer, 2009) and Anna and the Apocalypse (McPhail, 2018).
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X IDENTS2 Indie movies

SMOKIN' ACES

• WT2 - psuedo indie
• Total of 32 seconds

Ident 1

• Universal
• Own jingle
• 21 seconds

Ident 2

• Working Title
• Audio Bridge
• 11 seconds

WITHNAIL AND I

• 1987 - typical for older movies
• Total of 9 seconds

Ident 1

• Handmade Films presents
• 9 seconds
• Audio bridge

KIDULTHOOD

• 2006
• Total of 24 seconds

Ident 1

• Revolver Entertainment
• No audio
• 3 seconds

Ident 2

• Hanway Films
• No audio
• 9 seconds

Ident 3

• Stealth Films
• Own jingle
• 7 seconds

Ident 4

• Cipher Films
• Own jingle
• 5 seconds

HALLOWEEN REMAKE

• 2007
• Total of 12 seconds

Ident 1

• Dimension Films
• 12 seconds
• No sound / audio bridge

SEED OF CHUCKY

• No idents
• Titles and animated sequence

'71

• £8m budget 
• Total of 38 seconds

Ident 1

• Studio Canal (formerly Optimum Releasing)
• 19 seconds
• No audio

Ident 2

• Film 4
• 9 seconds
• No audio

Ident 3

• BFI
• 10 seconds
• No audio

SUBMARINE

• Total of 16 seconds

Ident 1

• Film 4
• 9 seconds
• Own jingle

Ident 2

• UK Film Council
• 7 seconds
• No audio

TYRANNOSAUR

• No idents

X PRE-PRODUCTION1 Pre-Production Ideas

ACTORS:

• Central protagonist - Danny Romero
• Love interest - Mia Jones
• Best friend - Fred East - intertextualises with Fred West (serial killer)
• 2/3 zombies 
• Intertextualising genre directors (Danny Boyle, George A Romero) - Danny Romero

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via GIPHY
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OTHER ASPECTS: 

• Cornetto franchise reference - possibly worms eye view - steps on cornetto wrapper - strawberry flavour connotes blood
• see zombie in bathroom + outside (chasing him) + zombie eating dead body
• Shallow focus (zombie eating body from far away)
• decaying title
• slow zombie movement type

X VODCAST2: Titles

VODCAST

In this vodcast, I speak about the titles in different movies.  I've looked at some Working Title movies as well as Warp movies.  It is clear that a title is very important as it anchors the genre and the preferred reading.  This is shown through the font, colour, size and case.  It is interesting as a few movies don't have any titles at all.  The order is also important to look at as this will help us create our film opening.  I look at Tyrannosaur (Considine, 2011), This is England (Meadows, 2007) and Four Lions (Morris, 2010) from Warp and Bridget Jones's Diary (Maguire, 2001) from Working Title.  I then looked at some zom-rom-com genre specific movies such as, Zombieland (Fleischer, 2009) and Anna and the Apocalypse (McPhail, 2018).
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X FILM OPENING EG1 Pretty in Pink

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IDENTS

• Only one company ident (Paramount Pictures)
• Now usually a few company idents

TITLES

• Wording, font use, order - all very important
• In older movies, usually all put at the end

TITLES IN ORDER 

(If in bold - bigger font size)

• PARAMOUNT PICTURES PRESENTS (all upper case and sans-serif - less likely to connote sophistication) - Black and white connoting seriousness / drama genre.  Polysemic title - sans-serif font with white on black.
• A JOHN HUGHES PRODUCTION (all upper case, sans-serif).  Expected auteur theory however usually "Film" and not "Production".  

SHOTS

• Exposition shot - narrative enigma.  Some degree of context - a working class area (grass growing over pavement, rusty car, broken roads)
• Panning shot showing both sides of the track - Born/from the wrong side of the tracks - One side is a nice area than the other.

X IDEAS2 Zombies

SHAUN OF THE DEAD
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Things we liked (ignoring the bar scene):

• Everyone looking like zombies however they're just doing their boring jobs
• When a car would go past and it would cut into next shot
• The continuous panning from left to right 
• The use of titles such as the Shaun of the Dead on the floor
• The narrative enigma of Shaun panning from feet to head and looks like a zombie
• The quick shots of parts of his morning routine

ZOMBIELAND

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Things we liked:

• The video recorder effect
• Point of view shot with the first zombie
• The visuals of Earth (don't know if we could do that)
• The use of titles for the rules
• The funny list of rules
• The slo mo title sequence (however we thought it was too long)
• The moving titles in the title sequence

WARM BODIES

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Things we liked:

• The narrative enigma of the main character then revealing he is a zombie
• The set design
• The internal monologue
• Flashbacks
• Scenes going on behind character 
• The transition back to how it was before and then back to now

X PRACTICE2 Installing and using fonts

INSTALLING AND USING FONTS
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• Find an website where you can download fonts
• Find the font you want to use
• Click download
• Make sure the font is a True Type Font (ttf)
• Double click on the file and then press 'Install Font'
• Make sure Final Cut Pro is closed
• Open Final Cut Pro
• Drag in a title
• Change font to the one just downloaded