Stop Motion Title Sequence Research

For our title sequence I wanted to try using a version of our logo to expand on and create into the actual titles, I thought that using the scrunched up piece of paper with our company name on it instead of creating a whole separate title sequence could save us time and look quite sleek and professional. I had the idea that the piece of paper could crumple and then flatten again so that it would seem as if the person writing the titles kept making mistakes and starting again. This is basically the idea of our film which I thought could tie it nicely in. The writer keeps making mistakes and erasing them; effectively starting on a clean slate and every time Jack does this in the film he is also starting on a clean slate. The titles would sort of echo the point of the film and subliminally let the audience know what the film is about. This idea could also give new meaning to our name, 'Blank Page Productions', as the person keeps starting on a blank page, this shows that our name does not just mean that we are out of ideas or anything, but that we keep coming up with better and new ones. To create this sequence, I would basically film a piece of crumpled paper being flattened and crumpled again and use this over and over, each time adding a different piece of text from the titles.
I looked at a stop motion clip on Youtube that uses post it notes to gather ideas.

I thought that this clip was very well done and interesting and it keeps you wanting to watch it as it is not like any ordinary clip as it features something that you can marvel at and keep fixated on. The clip does feature a person which my idea wouldn't however I could incorporate my hand into the scene to give it a human touch. The fact that this clip involves paper and is done so well means that my idea could be carried off if I found the right way to shoot it. This clip is more complex than I intend mine to be, but it reflects the chaos the person has of achieving his deadline just as mine would reflect the themes in our film. I think overall that this clip shows that stop motion can be done well and look professional just as I would like my idea to. 

Viral Advertising

For the 2008 film, Dark Knight, the viral advertising used created a kind of alternate reality game whereby the whole world could witness and new fans could be drawn in. Some of these methods included:

• gatherings of Joker, Batman and Harvey Dent fans
• scavenger hunts around the world websites that let fans ‘vote’ for political offices in Gotham City
• hidden phone numbers and websites in the queue lines of The Dark Knight roller coasters at Six Flags Great America and Six Flags Great Adventure
• Gotham News Network has links to other Gotham pages such as Gotham Rail, a Gotham travel agency, and political candidate's pages.
• a fake web page was set up for Gotham Cabs, a website for Gotham News, and even the subway in Gotham City.

Each of these methods created a buzz around the film and were brought into the mainstream culture by word of mouth, ultimately resulting in a widespread knowledge of these campaigns as well as the hype about the film itself.

Below is a video detailing the viral campaign for Dark Knight in its entirety, demonstrating the effectiveness it had on the awareness of the film.

Pictured below is a small group of fans dressed Jokers, demonstrating against Harvey Dent in the fake election.

The idea of an alternate reality game, in which aspects of the film come to life, is an idea which hugely benefitted the profit of the film at the box office, as well as making a memorable viral advertising campaign. We could use a similar idea, whereby the idea of our remote control being real could be incorporated into a fake advert. This would allow people to wonder about the great idea behind having a remote that could rewind time and possibly be therefore interested in watching our film after being exposed to the idea.

A website was created for the campaign, using The Joker's tagline 'why so serious?' at whysoserious.com

Pictured above is the fake news campaign being recorded for the fake website of the fake election of Gotham City. We could do exactly the same thing with our remote control having an advert and even it's own fake website.

Although the Dark Knight film mainly appealed to existing Batman fans, new fans were founded through the hype of the extraordinary campaign. As our film would be a new film and not have an existing franchise to fall back on, it would be harder for us to create a buzz for our film as we would not have the existing fans to entice the new fans. Although it would be harder, it would not be impossible because the remote control idea would appeal to everyone; everyone has had moments when they wish that they could rewind time. Perhaps the film itself and romantic-comedy genre would not appeal to everyone, but if we could expose as many people as possible to the advert, we have a good chance of extracting possible fans of our film.

Script - First Completed Script

Title Sequence - Font for title

Together, we wanted to generate a font for the title of our film, "Rewind". We came up with the idea of some of the letters being displayed backward, as when our character Jack rewind's time, we see actions play backwards. The font would match with our production logo and have a handwriten feel. We also wanted to incorperate the logo's associated with rewinding and play/pausing as these are the features of the remote Jack uses. So we each focused on a task each.

Amy's Task - Generate a title digitally
I concentrated on creating the graffics on the computer. First I made some quick sketches of our ideas with idea fonts. Here are my notes:

Then I found an appropriate font from the list I found for the Production Logo. I choose to use "appleberry" which had a fun, quirky and handwritten quality. It matches well to the font of our Production lgo although it is slightly different. I then used software called 'ArtFontsLite', to flip the 'R' and 'E', and complied the image together using 'Paint'. I used a lower case 'i' so we could replace the dot with a symbol.

Then I found two symbols online, one for 'rewind' and another for 'play'. I replaced the hole in the 'R' with rewind, to be in sync with the backwards lettering, then the 'play' symbol as the dot for the 'i'. The logo could be easily altered or changed in the future, but it gives us something to work from. Here is the draft. We could use either, depending on what colour we use as a background.

Jade's Task - Stop Motion title
I thought that for our title, we could expand the sequence from our logo, into the actual sequence. For the actual title of our film itself I thought that we should have the first two letters, 'Re', backwards to symbolise Jack rewinding his mistakes and then have the last four letters, forwards to reflect the scene being played after the rewind. My idea was to create the entire sequence on paper and write each section of the sequence, (such as the actors names, distributor name and so on) on flat pieces of paper and then crumple them up to split the sequence into sections. I also thought that it would be a good idea to have a drawing of the remote on the piece of paper that states the title of our film as it would look as if the writer was creating a blueprint of some kind.

This is a rough sketch of my title idea, I wanted it to look quite rough and just as if it was a basic sketch because it needs to seem like the beginnings of an idea in order for it to get crumpled up. The drawing features the buttons on the remote we will use and has arrows that indicate what these buttons are, this allows it to look more like a blueprint.

Shooting Script - In Progress

Here is the start I have made to the shooting script. We will use this as a guide for a some practice shots involving a pulling focus medium shot, and a series and quick, snappy jump cuts.

01 – Location - Doorway
Shot No.	Shot Type	Description
1	MEDIUM SHOT – Gradual Zoom In	Jack stands center screen. He is facing the door and holding flowers, which are also in shot.. Camera has a gradual zoom as he speaks, looking into the camera.
2	CLOSE UP – Jack’s Profile	Jack’s face in profile from the right. He looks straightforward at the door, still rehearsing. At the end he looks down at his flowers…
3	CLOSE UP – Match on action, Jack’s hands and flowers	Match on action to Jack’s hands holding the flowers. Gesturing as if handing them to someone.
4	MEDIUM SHOT	As shot 1, minus zoom. Jack’s speech continues looking into the camera. End in freeze-frame.  Voiceover plays.

02 – Location – Bus Stop
Shot No.	Shot Type	Description
1	MEDIUM SHOT – Gradual Zoom Out	Emma is in center screen. She is stood at the bus stop, waiting. Jack’s voiceover is still playing.
2	MEDIUM SHOT – Pulling focus	Jack in profile, Emma should be out of focus in the background. Jack looks across to her and smiles. Focus pulls to Emma who is looking at Jack and smiles.

03 – Location – Jack’s Living Room
Shot No.	Shot Type	Description
1	MEDIUM SHOT – Low Angle	Looking down on Jack. He is sat looking at a computer screen, scrolling, with a bored expression. The main lighting should be provided by the computer screen, creating an isolated feel. Jack’s voiceover is still playing.
2	MEDIUM CLOSE UP –Jack’s Profile	Jack’s face in profile. He finds something interesting and his expression changed.
3	CLOSE UP –Computer Screen	Shot of screen, mouse moves and clicks on a button which say’s “BUY”.
4	MEDIUM CLOSE UP – Jack’s Profile	As in Shot No. 2. A doorbell rings off screen and Jack looks left.
5	CLOSE UP – Jump cut	Jack opens a door.
6	CLOSE UP – Jump cut	Jack’s hands to the left of the frame, a delivery persons to the right. The delivery person is holding a box. They quickly hand it to Jack.
7	EXTREME CLOSE UP – Jump cut	The seal on the box and Jack’s hands are visible. He uses a knife to cut the seal.
8	MEDIUM SHOT – Low Angle	Looking down on Jack’s hands as he opens the box, and riffles through the packing materials. He should dig in an exaggerated fashion, spilling the material onto the floor.
9	EXTREME CLOSE UP	On packing materials as they spill onto the floor.  Fall onto the lens and cover up part of the screen.
10	MEDIUM SHOT – High Angle	Looking up at the box and Jack. He has reached the bottom. A light should be coming out (as if) from the box. He puts his hand in and brings out the remote, and as he does, angelic music plays, stopping and starting with his movement.
11	CLOSE UP – Jack’s face	He is looking down at the remote, and his hand brings it up between the camera and his face, looking amazed. Voiceover continues.

04 – Location - Doorway
Shot No.	Shot Type	Description
1	MEDIUM SHOT – Jump cut	Back to Jack in center screen at Emma’s doorstep. He is facing the door. He is continuing to practice, then drops the flowers, sighs, and bends down in the shot.
2	MEDIUM SHOT – Low Angle	Looking down on Jack in profile as he continues to bend grabs the flowers and starts to stand up again.
3	MEDIUM SHOT – Now behind Jack.	Shot from behind Jack as he straightens up, Emma opens the door, shocked to see Jack stood there. She speaks.
4	MEDIUM SHOT – Jack	Jack in a slight profile, he speaks back.
5	MEDIUM SHOT – Shot-reverse-shot	Emma in a slight profile, she questions Jack.
6	MEDIUM SHOT – Shot-reverse-shot	Jack in a slight profile, he replies.
7	MEDIUM SHOT – Shot-reverse-shot	Emma in a slight profile, she questions Jack.
8	MEDIUM SHOT – Shot-reverse-shot	Jack in a slight profile, he speaks and starts to hand over the flowers. A swipe noise could be added in post-production.
9	MEDIUM SHOT – Match on action	Emma in a slight profile, as Jack’s flowers are handed to her, he awkwardly takes them. She speaks.
10	MEDIUM SHOT - Jack	As in Shot No. 1. Jack looks stressed. His hand goes to his pocket and takes out the remote.
11	CLOSE UP - Remote	Jack puts his finger on rewind. In post-production the scene should replay backwards until he is about to give her the flowers, he pauses. Throws the flowers over his shoulder, followed b a freeze-frame. Voiceover then plays. Then TITLES.