Comparitive Research

The first video i am going to analyse is the original Batman movie with Adam West (1966). The opening credits are incredibly simple as it is mainly just the various characters of the film funning past the camera being followed by searchlights. Although a big difference with these credits is that right at the beggining the searchlight finds some messages that appear to be written on the walls to all the fans and viewers thanking them, and general messages from the producers of the film. These messages are shown using a plain white light, to make the messages easier for the viewer to read. Next pops up the original Batman logo and the music. The logo moves across the screen where it fades out to show someone running along a dimly lit "green" alleyway. Next, Batman appears from the left side of the screen, lit up by a light blue light. The camera then pans along to show Robin coming out from the right side of the screen lit up by a yellow light. Where appropriate the character name comes up above the actors naem, for example when Batman walks on it says "Batman... Adam West". If the person being mentioned does not have a charcter, they are simply just the words saying what they have done and their names. For the next minute and a half the various different characters of the film appear on screen lit up by different colour searchlights. I am unsure wether the colour of the light relects on the character or not, but i think it has some relativity. For example, in this film, the Joker wears green and is lit up by a green light. The names of all the people starring in the show and the producers etc all appear in simple white letters on top of the film, and fade away to let the next set come up. It is very hard to tell how many shots this scene has as between every shot it fades to black and isn't clear if the camera has moved, or if they just turned the lights off in order for the next character to be introduced.

In contrast to this, the new Batman film, the Dark Knight has no credits at all at the start of the film. It goes straight into the opening scene where you see a bunch of clowns, you are supposed to assume they are working with the Joker (most people will have either seen a Batman movie or at least vaguely know the characters, so as assumption like this is easy to make). This goes to show that as the Batman franchise has grown and the movies become bigger and bigger the need to waste time and money telling people who is in the film has become less and less important. This is one of the few films that has no credits at the start of films other than the production company logo's. They are able to do this because when new Batman films are planned to be released, the amount of Media hype they get and they amount of attention the fans give to the cast lists means that most people who are interested in the film knows exactly who is playing who before the film has even been released.

On the other hand, some films from different parts of the world, such as Dragon Tiger Gate based on the Hong Kong Manua (comic book) Oriental Heroes. This films starts with a couple of characters sitting around they appear to be small children. You hear them talking, although it's in Chinese or something so i found one with subtitles, but basically they are talking about why you learn martial arts. Then some text comes up naming the production company, theres isn't an apparent logo, simply the name in Chinese, then underneath in English. The music then gets much faster and more intense as you get thrown into some big, very impressive fight scenes, which i assume gives you a general idea of the movie. Then it shows some text and various different images for the different people, there's a bolt of lightning for one person, a scorpion for someone else etc.

As this opening sequence is very intense, there are many quick cuts between scenes. Even though the opening scene is only 2:45 there are about 131 different shots or angles in that time. That is a new show or different angle every 1.12214 seconds. As some of the shots at the start are much longer, many of the shots in the middle are split seconds, literally blink and you miss them shots. I watched the clip several times and still couldn't count them all exactly.

I really love how "Th1ng" created the sweeney todd opening sequence. After the Dreamorks and Warner Bros logos have come and gone, it takes you to an animated, stormy, Victorian style London. The slow, yet eerily intense organ music gives the film a suitable start as it instantly suggests what kind of film it is going to be. While the scrren appears to be panning across London, it is raining. If you look carefully, you can occasionally see drops of blood falling in the rain. It is not frequent, it is just the occasional drop, which i think is amazing because it just goes to show the detail they went into to give the occasional person who is paying hilariously close attention to small details such as that something to think about.

It then succesfully sets the scene by showing you the house in which the majority of the film is set, and a drop of blood flowing down the arm of a chair. The camera then follows this line of blood as it shows the ineer workings of the chair and is finally drained into the sewers. It then shows you the machine they use to turn the people they've killed into mincemeat, which then drops another droplet of blood down into the sewers. This time, however the sewer zooms out and spins round until it simply shows a blood red spiral on the floor, an image which is quickly engulfed by flames as the next part of the credits take over. The intense flames then zom out slightly to show that they are in fact cooking pies, again, with a pool of blood ready to drip over the side and continue the story. The oven door then shuts and you follow the drainage bit as the blood flows into the sewer. It then follows the sewer as it takes the blood red water and deposits it into a larger body of water, assumed to be a river.

What i love about this opening sequence is that it is entirely animated, but unlike most titles tells you basically what the film is about. You could only watch the titles sequence and understand that film is about a guy in a house who puts people on chairs and kills them, he them turns them into pies. This, for the most part os true, there is slightly more to the storyline than that, and if you watched the film you would understand most of it, why he is doing it, how he is doing it etc. The other thing i like is that you aren't shown a single character. It tells you the basic storyline, but reveals nothing else about the film. You aren't shown any characters, any locations apart from a building somewhere in a city somewhere. If you only wanted to get the basic jist of the film, you could watch the titles and leave, but that wouldn't give away nearly enough information to satisfy most people, and makes you watch the film to find out what the titles are about.



The comapny who made this sequence, "Th1ng" have also produced many adverts, music videos and film openings for various people. Many of these videos, especially the adverts appear to be animations or stop-motions. I think this is good because while it is easier in a sense that you don't have to hire actors and film during certain times, i think creating good looking adverts using stop motion is very difficult, and subsequently very rewarding if it works.

This opening sequence is fantastic due to its simplicity. It is simple the Batman logo, that appears to be carved into stone or something. Basically all it does is start off in an extreme close up and rotate the image while zooming out until it ends with the entire logo filling th screen. There are very few actual credits, and strangely, as there are so few, none of the cast are mentioned, which is strange as the main actor(s) are usually names quite early on in the sequence.



I like this advert because it's quite childish. Not in a sense that it is in anyway immature, but in a sense that the backing song would appear to be sung by small children and the letters at the end, are the same as the sticky magnetic letters you stick on the fridge when you are small. I'm not entirely sure what these are for, but i'm sure they come in handy occasionally. I think the advert is very cleverly done, and the fact that it will appeal to younger audiences as well as older ones is very good because it is easier to buy things for children if they want it, too. As this advert will appeal to young children, with the happy song and the beans on toast man etc they are more likely to eat it than if it was just an advert of a guy standing there going "This stuff is better for you. Buy it." It is very cleverly tailored towards all age ranges that are likely to use the product.