Brandon Poonwasie's Media Blog

Art Of The Title Homework: DYM

1) Summarise your film idea. Provide a brief synopsis and outline what happens in your film opening.

Our film is a thriller-horror about a caretaker who kidnaps girls at their schools and dresses them up like babies or children, caring for them before killing them. The main character is called Clarence, as the film is named.

2) What kind of information has been included in your film opening

We are immediately told that this film stars Mari Leach in the graphic, and then we see the main character holding the picture of one of the girls in the previous shot, suggesting an obsession. The bathroom is shown with the introduction of the girl in the photo, establishing a school setting, and an innocent character just doing her make up. We actually show the character waiting outside the bathroom with a baseball bat, and dragging her into the cellar, obviously showing that he's kidnapping her. The girls are both dressed in baby clothes which they weren't wearing previously, so there is a slight character questioning as to why Clarence dresses them up like this, and makes it creepier too. Georgie's eyes are shown to show her fear

3) How do the titles link to the main film idea?

The titles link to the main film idea because of the font and colour. The font used was 'Chiller' which looks stereotypically of the horror-genre, and the red against the dark colours (black where possible) is very iconographic because the combined font and colour make it seem more like the 'blood on the wall' writing which is often seen in horror films.

4) Summarise the expected audience reaction. What should the audience be thinking by the end of your opening? Is your opening clear or ambiguous?
We expect the audience to be quite confused with this opening sequence. We purposefully try not to give too much character information away so that the audience understand that this is obviously a kidnapping, with the shots of her coming out of the bathroom and being dragged away, but also question who this is, why he's doing it, and why these particular girls. The opening is therefore clear on the aspects that we want it to be, but ambiguous, purposefully, on the other specific 'why' details, as this would lead to audience curiosity and make them more likely to continue watching.

5) Identify three things you included in your grid that are important in the construction of an opening sequence and explain their role in understanding the film.


We have included:

1. A font which connotes the genre - Most films have a font from which the genre can be easily understood, as it clearly defines what the film is and will appeal to the correct audience, i.e. Se7en contained very scratchy fonts, which connote that it is a thriller.
2. An extreme close up to show the character's fear - connotes the genre as a thriller-horror
3. Titles - tell the audience who are in the film, and also the name of it

6) How effective is your project as a film opening? Explain your answer.

I think that as a film opening, our project is relatively effective because it establishes character with the shots, and is deliberately ambiguous about who the Clarence character is, or the motives. However, I think it could have been better if we'd established the scene more and had more props, i.e. baby food, to make the shots creepier and give the audience a sense of where they are at the start.