Research into Institutional Logos

For our film, we were required to create institutional logos that would appear at the beginning of our film opening. To help me create ideas for the group, I decided to look into the 20^th century fox logo
and see how they have developed over time so i was able to think about these conventions and the target audience when creating and developing our own logos for the group.

The distinctive Art Deco 20th Century Fox logo, originated as the 20th Century Pictures logo, with the name "Fox" substituted for "Pictures, Inc." in 1935. The logo was originally created as a painting on several layers of glass and animated frame-by-frame. It had very little animation, only including a sideline view of the tower with searchlights, some moving and some non-moving. Over the years the logo was modified several times.

In 1953 the logo was recreated from the original design for the new CinemaScope process. In order to give the rather static design, the "0" in 20th was titled an idiosyncratic element which became part of the design for more than two decades.
In 1981, the eight-layered glass panels were given a new colour and the '0' of 20th century fox was straightened. This revised logo became the official trademark.

 In 1994, an all-new, standardized logo—this time using the new process of CGI was created. The new logo contained more detail and animation, so that the longer (21 second) Fox fanfare with the "CinemaScope extension" could be used as the underscore.

In the background can be seen the famous Hollywood sign, which would give the monument an actual location. One final touch was the addition of store front signs—each one bearing the name of Fox executives who were at the studio at the time.

The 1994 CGI logo was also the first time that Twentieth Century Fox was recognized as "A News Corporation Company" in the logo, although it had already been owned by News Corp. for nine years.

In 2009, an updated logo debuted in the film Avatar(2009) The 75th Anniversary version of the 2009 logo was used to coincide with 20th Century Fox's 75th anniversary and made its official debut with Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief(2010)

 and appeared for the last time with Gulliver's Travels(2010).

From this, I can see how technologies have developed and allowed the logo to develop with the use of sound and animation.

This will help me when creating an animated logo for my final film opening as i will be able to see how logos have been animated and how this has affected audience and success within the company.

Research of Student Film

We started to do research on existing student film in order to give us an understanding of differences of film openings and film trailers. We viewed three films within our media lesson and looked at diffferent aspects of each film. We picked out strengths and weaknesses from each film in order to give us an idea about how to create our own film openings.

Student Film 1


Strengths:
-the music and setting of the film fitted in well with the horror genre
-the layout of credits at the beginning were good, didnt go on for to long

Weaknesses:
-the font of credits and titles was too blocky and didnt relate to the genre
-it came across as more like a film trailer rather than film opening and the narrative was left closed.

Student Film 2


Strengths:
-the music and titles related to the horror genre.
-effective editing techniques such as the transitions
-even though there was a lack of continuity, the storyline was understood and everything linked in well.

Weaknesses:
-the filming was more like a trailer than opening to a film and the narrative was closed.
-the introduction and titling took up too much time

Student Film 3


Strengths:
-this film was open narrative with a clear opening (not like a trailer)

Weaknesses:
-doesnt portray the genre as well
-the 'bad apple productions' title does not fit in with the film or the genre as it looked too computer generated.
-didnt erase editing errors such as smiling and movement.  

This enabled us to see what and what not to do when creating our film opening and improve upon these weaknesses in order to create a stronger film opening without the weaker aspects. We must make sure that our film opening is an open narrative so it does not look too much like a trailer and make sure that the atmosphere, titles and music all fit in with our desired genre.

Further Research into the Psychological Thriller Genre and Film Openings

Psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the broad ranged thriller and horror genres. However, it often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre, in addition to the typical traits of the thriller genre.
A psychological thriller movie is one that deals with suspense by getting into your mind. Instead of just being about blood and gore, the plot focuses on how the mind can be disturbed and horrified. These psychological suspense movies may have lots of action and some blood, but the main intent is the element of the psyche.

General trends have appeared throughout the narratives. Some of these consistent themes include:
Reality – The quality of being real. Characters often try to determine what is true and what is not within the narrative.
Perception – A person's own interpretation of the world around him/her through his/her senses. Often characters misperceive the world around them, or their perceptions are altered by outside factors within the narrative.
Mind – The human consciousness; the location for personality, thought, reason, memory, intelligence and emotion. The mind is often used as a location for narrative conflict, where characters battle their own minds to reach a new level of understanding or perception.
Existence/Purpose – The object for which something exists; an aim or a goal humans strive towards to understand their reason for existence. Characters often try to discover what their purpose is in their lives and the narrative's conflict often is a way for the characters to discover this purpose.
Identity – The definition of one's self. Characters often are confused about or doubt who they are and try to discover their true identity.
Death – The end of life. Characters either fear or have a fascination with death.

Techniques within psychological thrillers
Stream of consciousness – a literary technique which seeks to describe an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes. In psychological thrillers, the narrative tries to manifest the character's psyche through word usage, descriptions, or visuals.
First-person narrative – a literary technique in which the story is narrated by one or more of the characters, who explicitly refers to him or herself in the first person, that is, "I". This direct involvement that the characters have with the story in turn makes the reader more involved with the characters themselves, and thus able to understand the mechanics of the characters' minds. This technique is often paired with the concept of the unreliable narrator.
Back-story – the history behind the situation extant at the start of the main story. This deepens the psychological aspect of the story since the reader is able to more fully understand the character; more specifically, what the character's motivations are and how his past has shaped his current cognitive perceptions.

Top 10 Thrillers - IMDb
1) I Am Number Four (2011)
2) Unknown (2011)
3) The Next Three Days (2010)
4) Black Swan (2010)
5) 127 Hours (2010)
6) Drive Angry 3D (2011)
7) The Mechanic (2011)
8) Sanctum (2011)
9) Inception (2010)
10) The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Film Openings Include:
-Details of cast and crew
-Film title
-Introduction to character or character type
-Indication of place and historical period
-Information regarding mood and tone
-Introduction to signature theme tune
-Information about genre
-Questions that the viewer finds intriguing
-Patterns and tyes of editing
-Mise en scene and cinematography