Editing - Titles

Editing the Titles

Examples of the titles I made using Photoshop CS5 can be found at this post. Here is one example:

I wanted to emulate the style of the titles I had previously seen in this film noir clip by having the title cover the majority of the screen and fading into each other.

I placed the first title on top of the footage like so:

I then moved it slightly further along  the timeline so I would have time to place the fading transition. I felt the white writing looked a little stark against the dark background so I used the colour correction to lower the exposure slightly, making it a faded grey colour.

I then lined up all the titles next to each other with no gaps in between so they would fade seamlessly into each other. I set them to show for four seconds each as this was a similar time period to the clip I'd watched. Like in most film noirs, I put the names of the main actors first. Instead of using the names of the real actors, my dad and Mindi, I used the names of two of the biggest film noir stars to make the film look more authentic. Then, I dragged the cross dissolve transition onto each of the titles which added a cross dissolve to the start and beginning of each one.

Here is an example of what the titles look like on top of the footage.

I'm pleased with how the titles turned out as I think they are similar to how titles in real film noir look. I think the cross dissolve makes it look particularly effective, and I like how all the titles appear within the first minute as they don't obstruct the real action of the film.

Editing: Adding Titles Credits

Titles credits  

In accordance to the deconstruction I had done, I decided to use the titles that had previously been made by Xena and put them into place.

Like in my research I put the names of the actors first which I put in as soon as the opening begins.

 

Then after I had finished with the actor's titles I moved onto ordering the production team's titles, with the director and executive producer's names last, which adhered to my deconstruction.

 

 

 

 

 

After viewing all the titles in order, I noticed that each time the appeared seemed too sudden and contrasted too much with the texture of the background filter and soundtrack, which generated a smoothness to tones of the footage. 

 

 

 

To solve this issue I added cross dissolve transitions to the titles so it faded out and looked more like the deconstructions of film noir that I had done.       

 

The typography itself seemed quite intense than it had done when I viewed it as an isolated picture, so to sort this out I went into the lighting control and adjustments, and moved the highlights down by -11% to make it blend into the background just a little, so there wasn't such a big contrast. I then went back and did the same thing to all the other clips.

Once I had finished I went back to view the changes, which I was happy with, then I made sure that all the titles appeared before the one minute mark because I didn't want them dominated the frame through the action scenes- or scenes of tension.

Overall, I was satisfied with how the titles turned out and fit in with the conventions of film noir, and was generally integrated well.   

Deconstruction of Film Noir titles inspiration

Little Candy Heart Titles Deconstruction

 The only film noir/ neo-noir opening that I could find that had titles in the opening. In this film all the titles were in separate frames and central rather than integrated into the same frame that the scene is occurring in.  

 

 (0:31)

(0:33) 

(0:37)

(0:41)

 

I noticed that all the actors were mentioned first on a black glistening background. (0:45)

Then the musician 'original music written and composed' which we can't really use as we didn't compose any of the music soundtracks ourselves. However we can use this as one of our professional titles.
(0:49)    

'Director of photography ': is the leader of the crew on the film or television production and are responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions on the project. 

We can use this as an anagram of our names as none of us were really in charge. (0:52)

 

'Written': refers to who wrote the script and storyboard for the film project. This means that we could use all our names or co-writer names for this section. (0:56)

'Executive producer' is the head producer of the creation of the film. (1:00)   

 'Director' leads the film's creation and technical crew and actors. (1:04)  

 

I've learnt from this opening is that all the credits should happen in the first minute of the opening.