Art of the title: Kung Fu Panda

The opening sequence for 'Kung Fu Panda' only features two pieces of text; the first is the 'Dreamworks' intro and the second, the title of the film: 'Kung Fu Panda'. This may seem very basic but considering the target audience of the film is children, it is actually quite relevant. Children wouldn't appreciate seeing actors names who voice-over the characters, but would rather be introduced via colourful pictures. The text which you would find in a thriller movie opening sequence will be different to that of a film aimed at children. The text is either replaced by images and sound, or is not particularly important and so is left out entirely. Also, some children may not be able to read, or may not be strong readers, so having a lot of text in the opening sequence would be irrelevant. There also a voiceover which, again, replaces the text in the opening sequence.

The design of the titles is very cartoon-like. This shows the audience who the film is aimed at, as cartoons are usually watched/read by children. The shapes and colours are sharp and contrast well with each other, so that the images can be easily understood by the younger audience. The opening sequence consists mainly of the primary colours and black which keeps it simple, and considering other films use basic images (so that the attention is more focused on the text), it works well using an opposite method for a younger audience. There is an element of manga in the opening sequence which is also incorporated in some childrens cartoons (e.g. Pokemon). It also tells the audience that action is a main theme of the film and that the film is set in china, as manga and manga style cartoons originate from the far east.

The first piece of text is the 'Dreamworks' intro which is themed to suit the film by using a gong song effect and also a light reflection effect to make it seem as if a sword has struck and split apart the image from the text. This introduces the martial arts/action theme, along with the name of the film; 'Kung Fu Panda'. The next piece of text is 'Dreamworks Animation Presents' in the same style as the 'Dreamworks' intro, which builds up excitement for the start of the film, and also advertises the institution. The next and final piece of text is the name of the film: 'Kung Fu Panda' which is in large bold letters to make it stand out.

The trailer is overall very visual which suits the target audience well, as they could still be in early learning stages, or just coming to terms with learning to read. Text is not particularly necessary in this opening sequence as the audience are more suited to seeing images instead of reading text. The cartoon style images and the voiceover introduce the film better than text.

Hannah : )

Art Of The Title

The order of the titles for ‘The Incredibles’ film firstly shows the title of the film. The executive producer, music producer, character design and effects supervisor are also included and mentioned during the opening sequence. Also images which are related to the film are included such as the running figure above the executive producers name which is one on the characters (Dash) and shows his super power to run fast (Hence his name). Also the image of the red haired boy figure again shows the characters super power. The character image which is used in the character design slide shows the style of graphics used in this film. The strong reference to super hero’s throughout these opening titles indicates the theme, genre and story line of the film. 

Ellie <3 

Art Of The Title

The opening sequence to "Edward Scissorhands" begins with the main production name "20th Century Fox" in the credits but as most films do, they have added a different effect over the title; dark and snowy. This relates to the film because it's always snowing in Edward's home because of his work which eventually leads to snow everywhere because he gives them it. The next effect would be the title of "Edward Scissorhands" which is using a black background to emphasize the effect of the long white writing which is known with Tim Burton (the director) because he uses this with most of his films such as Corpse Bride and Nightmare Before Christmas. The following shots  contain actors, casting crew, production designer, screenplay writer and obviously the director; Tim Burton. All names are written in this same writing but use images that would stand out from the film  of things such as scissors and shapes (things he creates). I think this is quite effective because it ties to the director and his own style which has been massively put into the film. 

Kelly <3 

Art Of The Title

This title sequence for the film ‘Sherlock Holmes’ includes images of the characters so the characters are briefly introduced during the opening sequence of this film. The use of graphics and the colour scheme sets the genre and theme of the film. The producer names for different aspects of the film are included. For this film the order is; screenplay, executive producer, the title of the film, actress Rachel McAdams, music producer, Warner bros production. 

Ellie <3 

  Play video till 1:06
A suitable film opening for us to research was 'Legally Blonde'. However we were only able to find the video above which includes only a small taster of the aspects which we are aiming to include in our opening scene. These aspects include the girl brushing her hair indicating that she is very aware and involved in her appearance. The movements in the scene are slow and focused this is the kind of image we want to achieve. The mood created (stereotypical drama filled teen)

15/12/10 Diary Entry

Today we presented our blog containing all of our research into target audience and marketing strategies. We received feedback from Michelle advising us with possible improvements. As a result of this we have and will continue to add more images into our blog to give more of a "sketchbook" look and visual element than looking like an essay.
  We have decided that our diary entries will be written in the style of teen girls because we are trying to relate to our characters and relate to their mindset.


Kelly + Ellie :)

Advertising and Marketing

Advertising and marketing play an important role in creating a successful film. Without advertising, the target audience would be unaware of it so we need to find a suitable way of advertising so that it would be noticed by the aimed demographic. For our target audience (teens) we would need to publish our film in places such as magazines, social networks and radio reviews.


Magazines
Magazines are popular media resources for many young teenagers, especially amoungst young girls. For our film, teen magazines would be a prime advertising location as we would attract much interest from the correct target audience.

Popular teen magazines such as Bliss, Shout, Mizz and Sugar are the main places where we would advertise because they have the same target audience as our film, so we would both be relating to the same group of people.


A new modern online magazine - Slink, provided by the BBC, would also be a suitable place for advertisement. This website is very interactive and dependeant on the points of interest of their audience so allows views on topics and encourages points of view to be expressed. Therefore we could create a discussion forum on the BBC slink website, which would both advertise and encourage our film to be a talked a bout topic amoungst a young audience. 


Shops


Advertisement in shops such as New Look, Claire's Accessories and possibly Primark is also a possible way in which we would make people aware of our film. An example of how we could advertise in shops would be using images of the actors in our film wearing items from this shop, this would put our film out there and also advertise the shop. This marketing strategy is known as synergy.

Radio
A film review on a radio station such as Radio One would help raise awareness and interest for the film as the audience of radio one is young people. We could also use stations such as Kiss because they tend to be popular with young teens because a lot of the music is aimed at the same people we aim our film to.

First Pitch - 25 words

A geeky, unsocial reject faced with the jungle atmosphere of a new high school, confronted with the queen bee; Georgina Richards. Can she handle it?


This is a short summary of our whole plot which we decided to interpret as a jungle by using phrases such as "queen bee" (which shows status) to make the overall high school experience seem hectic and dramatic.

Genre Related Openings

while researching our genre, we found Juno; a teen comedy based on teenage pregnancy. We discovered  that this wasn't exactly what we wanted when it came to our genre because she isn't the same stereotypical teen that we expect to show in our film. However it is useful by showing what to do in our work to make it redundant for teens.

Initial Ideas

A group discussion lead us to our first initial idea that our opening scene could start by using mise en scene of girls applying their makeup. The use of close up would show the intensity and that make up is an important aspect for their appearance, it creates a stereo typical and superficial image of teenage girls. From watching films like mean girls audiences in this age category already know that a typical beautiful teenage girl would generally have the higher status amongst pupils so by opening a film in this way, it would already inform the audience of the basic storyline preparing them for the coming drama.

                  Image from 'Wild Child'                                             Image from 'Mean girls' 

 These two images strongly the typical image of teenage girls. From these images we are able to collect inspiration for costume and props which we could possibly use in our opening sequence. 

Teen Genre/Market

Each member of our group researched similar film openings after discussing and deciding our overall genre would be teen. We mainly focused on "girly" films, our target audience is teenage girls aged between 13-19 year old. We did some research on the U.K film council website where we discovered audience by gender and who goes to see what films. We found the 78% of the audience of Marley and Me were female and only 22% were men, Marley and Me is a girly kind of "chick flick" which is the kind of style that we want to do. We also saw that the majority of people that go the the cinema are aged between 15 and 24 which covers most of our target audience. 

Marketing of Mean Girls

Mean girls was released in cinemas on April 30, 2004 and attracted a large audience from tweens to teens. We plan on going for the same audience group so we want to go for a similar approach. The screen shot below shows the data of Mean Girls in the US provided by the Box Office. 

As can be seen, Mean Girls was a major release in cinemas. However a new release is currently being advertised and we have found that it is going straight to DVD. This could be due to the great success of the first film of which this new sequel release is depending upon for people to buy the new film. The film trailer includes clips of the original film to make the audience remember how good the film was helping to create and encourage a high interest for this new release.  This is something we will need to consider as it would be suitable for the buyer to have the film in there own comfort of the home.