BFI Study day

BFI Study day

British Film Institute (BFI) is located on the Southbank in London. The BFI was founded in 1933 and is a charity governed by the Royal Charter. The combine cultural, creative and industrial roles, bringing together the BFI National Archive and BFI Reuben Library, film distribution, exhibition and education at BFI Southbank

and BFI IMAX, publishing and festivals. They award lottery funding to film productions, distributions,

education and research.

We visited the BFI to explore the knowledge the lectures had about opening sequences. Peter Frazer introduced us to ways to develop our blogs, he also discussed opening title sequences. The first thing he did was talk about 5 aspects which included genre, narrative(enigma) provides the audience with the gripping point for the film making them want to see the rest of the film, structure, atmosphere and character. The films included Dawn of the dead, Napoleon Dynamite and Catch me if you can. It was decided that atmosphere hypothetically was one of the key factors in films such as Dawn of the Dead which genre was evidently thriller. We were then shown some student films to analyse and discussed how it is important not to show too much of the plot. We were told to add as many as 22 credits into the film in order to express all the different area productions to make the film fit with all the right conventions for thriller. Peter Frazer also talked about sound Foley,  this simply means producing your own sound effects which would immediately improve your blog altogether. 50% of an opening sequence is about sound, resulting in sound being a key aspect to focus on. The titles were only at the front of the sequence as a result not blending in with the rest of the sequence. It is important to make sure that the titles are combined with the imagery not just at the beginning of the sequence. There was also a strict array of age as most of the people were all the same or similar age where as normally in production there is a mixture of actors ages which creates a sense of realism in the sequence. The sequence should last around 2 minutes for it to be successful or else if it is too long the audience will get disinterested where as if it's too short they will perhaps not gain the right information. Also make sure that the soundtrack matches that of the sequence as a lot of the sequences that we saw did not go with the right genre of the film As a result not generation a sense of realism in the sequence.

Pete's blog: http://petesmediablog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/more-interesting-stuff.html