Preliminary Task: Script

Jake Denton

The History of the Opening Sequence

Tuesday 25th September

Humble Beginnings:

In silent cinema, the opening sequence was simply made up of titles; these titles though played an important role in films of that period. Filmmakers needed a way to convey information about the film to an audience. The first 'title sequences' were born.

Pioneering filmmaker DW Griffith shows early examples of the title sequence

Development of Titling:

Film studios began to employ typecasts to produce specialized print cards and over time, animated titles came into use, slowly resulting in more elaborate and complex sequences engineered by ambitious animators.

A modern example of the development of animated title sequences from the 2006 film '300'

The Birth of the Opening Sequence

Filmmakers began to use titling techniques in correlation with an introductory scene to a film. Titles conveyed information about the production of the film, while the opening scene they were layered over established key characters, events, and context to the film. In recent years opening sequences have become more ambitious and expensive, an example of this is Batman: The Dark Knight; the opening sequence to which is an explosive, heart-pounding and blockbuster action sequence.

Media Terms for Preliminary Task

Match on Action

- Match on action is an editing technique whereby a cut is made from the action occurring in a scene to a different view of the same action, creating a sense of continuity. 

180 Degree Rule

- The 180 Degree Rule is a key principle to film-making. It is a rule that dictates where the camera must be placed when shooting a character and another character or a character and another object.

- Imagine there is an 360 degree circle around two subjects. The camera cannot pass between the axis that cuts the circle in half, if the rule is broken, a cut will be distinctly evident to a viewer and would spoil the idea of continuity editing.

Image demonstrating the 180 degree rule

                            

Shot Reverse Shot

- Shot reverse shot is a film technique whereby cuts are made from the action, to the opposite view of the action and finally back to the action. This technique is often used in dialogue, to establish a natural conversation, and prove that characters are facing each other.

Media Studies: Coursework Brief

Preliminary Task Brief

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Preliminary Exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.

Jake Denton