'Shrek' - Opening Sequence

                                                       Opening Sequence To 'Shrek'


An opening sequence of a film is the most important part to consider when filming. Whilst filming the opening sequence, you need to consider the genre of the film, the characters and the story line, as well as the above-the-line talent to highlight the main stars of that particular film. This can determine whether the target audience  watches the film and enjoy it. For this task, I searched many film opening sequences on YouTube (films that I  have watched and enjoyed) and out of those I have searched, I decided which of them was the easiest to analyse. That film was 'Shrek' (the 1st film).

The Title:
The title (pictured above) is big, bold and colorful, suggesting this film is mostly aimed at children under 13. In the opening sequence, this piece of text is shown before the above-the-line to show importance. The importance of this title is to tell the audience what the film is called. The opening sequence shows the above-the-line talent in the following order:

• Mike Myers
• Eddie Murphy
• Cameron Diaz
• John Lithgow

This shows that the actors that have the more important roles appear before the least important, as Mike Myers does the voice of Shrek, Eddie Murphy (Donkey), Cameron Diaz (Princess Fiona) and finally John Lithgow (Lord Farquaad). The first 3 actors are well-known and play well-known characters, which you see in 'Shrek' sequels, whereas you only see John Lithgow's character in just one film (although he does make a cameo appearance in 'Shrek the Third').


Establishing The Genre:
The genre of this film is a 'computer-animated fantasy-comedy'. The technical elements used in the film gives the audience a clear idea of the genre.. In 'Shrek' the lighting is bright and clear and the music played is 'pop rock', a popular genre of music for kids and teenagers  alike. The film is also computer-animated, which includes a wide range of colours; therefore it would attract a kids attention more than a teenagers or an adult. Teenagers and adults would prefer to watch films, which are filmed realistically and are rated a 12, 15 or 18.
      At the very start of the opening sequence, we get an exact idea that this film is a fantasy film because of the idea of a fairytale book, which tells the story of a princess being trapped in a castle by a fire-breathing dragon. This gives the idea that this is a kids film because kids are the most likely age to get in to fairytales.

Narrative:

The story is introduced through both dialogue and action. First of all, it shows a book of a fairytale, where the character turns the pages and a voiceover then reads what is written in the book.   This shows that the story is very typical for the genre of the film because of the Disney cliche fairytale, which kids are most likely to enjoy reading or listening to. It is very typical also because of the wide range of bright colours used throughout the film's opening sequence, as well as the whole film. Children are young and to grab their attention and to grab their attention and get them engaged in an object is via the use of bright colours and colours that stand out on a different coloured background.

Time and Place:

The film is set around the same time frame as the middle-ages (The 5th up until the 15th Century). The setting is easily identified first of all with a long, probably establishing shot of a wooden-built portaloo, which is when the main character first appears. He then looks directly at his house (shown to the left) identifying a particular setting in the background (a forest). Other settings include a swamp, where Shrek goes for a shower and also a small village, located near a cornfield, where the knights are prepared to hunt down the ogre.

My 'Film Ident'

                                                                          My Ident


An ident is a bit like an advert, but it's not. It is basically a film company identifying themselves on a small-like video, which shows who is the main distributor of the film it is trying to premiere. For an example, 'Universal Pictures' uses the Earth and text that spins around the Earth to identify specifically who they are, as a distributor.

The main function of an ident is to give an idea of the company involved in the film and the production companies, who created these idents. 'Universal' for an example are owned by the 'General Electric' who are one of the top 6 production companies in the world, of which the 6 own 90% of the world's media.

Construction of my 'Ident':

At the top of this blog is my company ident, which I created using Final Cut Pro on a Mac.

The Name:

I chose the name 'Jupiter Productions' because I wanted to come up with an ident, which is similar to 'Universal Pictures' who are a worldwide major distributor. The name links with the 8 planets that we know and learn in news documentaries and also at a primary or secondary school. Jupiter is also the biggest planet in the solar system, which shows that 'Jupiter Productions' is a product which can sell big films, like 'Universal'.



The Typography:

I have used the font 'Korataki' for 'Jupiter Productions' because it's bold and that writing normally stands out better when bold; I filled the font with the colour white, so it could stand out on a black background. I have made the 'Jupiter' look bigger than the 'Productions' to show importance to what the distributors name is and the 'Production' is just for the backup.
        However, for my 'Walker Pictures Entertainment', I have used the font 'Helvetica', which is not as bold as what I have used for the 'Jupiter Productions'. I have done this because it is less important and I have made it very small, so that the viewer doesn't have to be reminded of the text. It is shown in the bottom right hand corner.



The Motion:

The clip I have included for my ident (Space: Jupiter and the moons) came from YouTube. I got it from a documentary from the United States about the planet Jupiter and just the basic information about it.

                                       The US documentary is called 'Jupiter - The Giant Planet'

The idea came from the first 30 seconds of the documentary, with the planet itself and the movement of Jupiter, with its moons. I used the Intro, Outro and the Favourite tool to crop and add parts of this documentary to my timeline, so I could make an effective piece of work, which works well with the film industry in general. I tried not to put my text in to the clip too early, otherwise it would be boring to look at a text for so long. I put the text within 15 seconds of my ident, which appeared and dissolved at the end of my ident.

The Sound:

I used YouTube to find the clip of the sound to my ident. I added the video to the timeline and then detached the audio from the clip by pressing 'Ctrl + Left click' whilst being highlighted.

By doing this, I can cut out the whole clip and just place the sound in to the ident. From the documentary, I did completely the opposite (cut out the sound and just placed in the clip).

Welcome to my blog:

Hello everyone, I'm Josh Walker, student of Weston College and in my blog, I will be introducing and talking about the purpose, audience, characters, directors, editors, influences and all of my struggles to do with this part of this coursework.

I am studying A Levels: Media Studies, French, Comms and Culture and English Lang + Lit and in my spare time, I like to play games and listen to music via my iPod or Laptop, as well as rocking out to dubstep and mainstream music in my bedroom.

I am really looking forward to starting my coursework, which is to construct an opening sequence to a new fiction film. As well as this, I will talk about how I constructed it using text and screenshots.