Week three

Reserach into the detective genre.
   I decided to look at different film openings from different times. This video is 'Sherlock Holmes' Fatal Hour (1931)'. Also, i've been looking at the type face and font colour from the different detective openings for ideas for the colour and font of the text we'll be using for our logo and opening credits.

                                          
In this film opening it begins with the opening credits which is very typical of the films from the early 1900's. The font is white and softer than some fonts like Arial. For our film opening we will most likely use a white rounded font.

   The first camera shot shows a pitch black room with what looks like two identical lights side by side from a wondow. As we cannot see what else is in the room or what type of room we are looking at which leaves the audience asking what's about to happen and why it's so dark which adds to the element of surprise and mystery.

   When a door is opens it reveals man lit by the light coming from the doorway.

   Two men are then in the room but you cannot see their identities which also adds to the mysteriuos atmosphere. They begin to fight but you cannot see this becasuse they're fighting in the dark space and you can only hear the exaggerated sounds of the men punching each other when one mans hat rolls into the window light.

   The hat looks like a police hat which may suggest foul play, a 'dirty cop' being 'disposed' of or a police man coming to investigate something and a man beats him up.

   A man then falls into the light and appears to be hurt as you can hear him coughing and spluttering. The technique of having the identity of the man on the floor a secret is a good one in detective films and we will most probably use this technique in our video.

   As the bad guy leaves the room he is lit my the door opening . The scene then changes to a game of cards with alcohol glasses on the table when the camera pans upwards revealing a man. As the man has not been named he seems mysterious as the audience wonders who this man is, why he has been the first character whose face has been shown to the audience and whether he was the man who beat up the supposed policeman.

  The second video is 'Appointment with death part 1- Agatha Christie's poirot'(1988). I also looked at this video to see how the open credits were used, music backing and font.

   The film starts with the man brushing something buried in the ground seems mysterious as you don’t know what’s about to happen. The music is ethnic for want of a better world. Southern Asia sounding.

   The man running creates tensions and suggests urgency which leaves the audience wondering why he’s running and where or who is he running to. As you cannot see the running man’s face creates a sense of mystery.

   The change in music when the running man shouts to the man who had the brush also builds tensions and even though you most likely cannot understand the language the men are shouting in, the tone of the music suggests something key to the movie is going to happen.

   The opening credits come on in a rounded more than cornered font which seems typical of detective films from my research. The white font colour also seems typical of detective/mystery films.

   At 1 minute and 09 seconds the camera is shot from a low angle which suggests the man in the middle standing (the brush man) is an important character and is of a high status in this scene.

   The shot before showing many workers digging and walking with wheelbarrows is shot from a high angle suggesting their status is the opposite to the brush mans and they are seen as lower than him. 

 When the brush man is being lowered into the hole/cave he shines the torch onto the wall revealing some sort of Arabic-like language. The music playing is now choir-like and fast paced which creates a sense of anticipations as the audience is guessing what the writing means and why it’s significant.