Deconstruction of Cloudy with a chance of meatballs

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs is an animation and has a very different opening sequence to a thriller. The colours are bright which suggests the film is happy and cheery. The credits are in a wonky font which the viewer could interpret as meaning the film does not have a serious story line and is easy watching.
    Although the film is animation, for the opening sequence a different style of animation is used. This maybe because the animation used for the majority of the film is an imitation of our reality, so the amination used in the opening sequence is an imitation of the movie characters reality. They do this to break the film up, and to give you an in sight to how the character thinks. Unlike in a many thriller's opening credits, cloudy with a chance of meatballs does not introduce the scene when the film takes place.

Deconstruction of Napoleon Dynamite

Napoleon Dynamite isa comedy made in 2004. The opening credits are very different to a thriller's opening. There is only one shot used in the opening which is a point of view shot. This shot is used to give the audience moreof an intimate relationship with the film and the characters.
   The colours of the props and backgrounds used are uplifting and give the audience an insight to the mood of the film, while the randomness of the titles reflect the random storyline of the film overall. You can tell the film is a comedy because of the opening titles, they're lighthearted and have a funny element within them.
   The specific food in certain shots is very typical 'american food' which gives the audience an idea of what to expect from the characters and setting where the film takes place. Also in one shot, they have used the character Napoleon Dynamite's 'Preston High School' identification card, this not only introduces the views to the main character in the film, but also introduces them to the main location.

Deconstruction of Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver (1976) is a crime thriller about a mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran working as a night time taxi driver.
   In the opening credits, the first shot is of complete darkness and silence with credits fading in and out. It then cuts to a cloud of smoke and music starts to play. This creates the atomosphere that would be similar to the one in the city the film is located in, as it is ment to be dark, dirty and 'sleezy'.
    As the credits continue to appear, the audience can clearly see the contrast between the credits and the smoke. The smoke slowly goes away, which exposes a close up of a taxi. The music volume increases as the taxi slowly drives by, which creates tension, leaving the audience wondering asking questions about what is going to happen next.
   The music then suddenly slows down and becomes calmer. The shot shows an extreame close up of a man's face, which will make the viewers presume he's the main character. As the music continues it flicks from the extreame close up to a point of view shot of a front car window in the rain, at night, down a busy city street. Because of the rain, the lights from the city buildings bounce off the water making the view from the window slightly blurred. This creates a sense of mystery, as the audience are not able to clearly see the setting.

Deconstruction of Alien 3

  Alien 3(1992) is a well known science fiction horror thriller, and the third installment of the Alien quadriolgy. It's about an escape pod on board a 'starship' That crash landed on a planet killing everyone but one, and unknown to her an alien egg was born in the ship, and going on a killing spree.
   Many of the shots in Alien 3's opening credits show main characters and elements in the film. This was done to not only inform the viewers on who will be in the film and where it will take place, but to leave them asking questions about why the characters are in that situation and where they exatcly are. By doing this, it leaves the audience feeling tense and wanting to watch the film to answer their pending questions.
   In the first shot, it shows a black background showing the name of the film in a clear white font. This was done to build the audience's nerves and make them wonder what is going to happen next.  It then goes to a scene with a character asleep in what appears to be an escape pod. The lighting used is slightly misty, which is used to confuse the audience, asking why it would be like that. By the mist being there, it impares the shots of the characters, building suspense, leaving the viewers not knowing that could be in the mist.
   In the next two shots it shows the alien itself. The lightly has significantly changed, from being quite bright and misty, to dark and clear. This was done as dark is often percieved to mean horror, and by making the shot clear, it gives the audience a chance to see exactly what the alien looks like. This shot was made purely to scare the demographic.
   The other shots in the credits are unclear of exactly what they are, but this was done purposely to confuse the audience again, and make them want to watch the whole film, to understand what is happening.
   In all of the shots, no credits to the people who participated in making the film are on screen, this was done because the shots in the opening sequence is already quite busy, with a lot of things happening and going on for the viewer to look at and concerntrate on. If their were also credits on screen, the viewer attention would be diverted, so the effect of the tension the shots are trying to build would not be as effective.

Deconstruction of Panic Room

   This is the opening for Panic room, a thriller made in 2002 about a mother and daughter hiding in a panic room during an invasion by three armed robbers trying to find millions of dollars hidden somewhere in the house.
    All of these shots are fairly similar. All of them are long shots of the city the film takes place with the large credits appearing to be 'floating' in the air.
   In the first shot an simple frontal establishing shot is used to introduce the audience to the location of the film. It starts in complete darkness, with the everyday sounds of New York. Then as the noise dims slightly, the establishing shot fades in along with a slow, deep classical music piece composed especially for the film, which builds the tension.
   The large font used for all the credits in the shots are coloured a grey colour, similar to those of the buildings surrounding it. Also, the colour of the font reflects the mood of the city. The lighting and weather used in the opening scene indicates the mood is very dull.  If the producers chose to use a more vibrant font and colour, the effect of the mood being put across may not have been as powerful, as brighter colours indicate to the audience a happier mood. Another reason why the credits are coloured grey is that they blend well with the cityscape around it, so the viewers don't get too distracted from the overall scene, and can still focus on what is going on around them, and feel the tension that is being put across.

Group

Myself Alice and Bethany have decided to be in a group together for the main task. We chose this as we thought we worked well together in the preliminary task. Firstly we went through possible film genres we could use for the task which included drama, horror,thriller and comedy. Me and Alice researched as Bethany wrote down our ideas on a mind map. After this we narrowed it down to drama and thriller, then made the final decision to do a thriller for the task.

   We have chose to do a thriller as it is a stong genre that covers a wide range of sub-genres which include:

• Conspiracy
• Crime
• Disaster
• Legal
• Medical
• Mystery
• Phycological
• Supernatural

     Thriller's use suspense, tension and excitment as their main elements with the main idea being to keep the audience constantly on edge. The themes of thriller films frequently include terrorism, poltical conspriacys and love triangles leading to murder or kidnap. Therefore often including characters such as criminals, stalkers, assassins and phychotic individuals.

   In a thriller, the hero must thwart the enemy's plans, and the identity of the criminal or murderer is normally known all along. Thrillers climax when the hero defeats the villian, saving his own life and often the lives of others.