Research Textual Analysis: Double Idemnity by Billie Wilder

1. 1944 American Film Noir
2. About a provocative housewife who wishes her husband were dead 
3. The term 'double idemnity' refers to a clause in certain life insurance policies that doubles the payout in cases when death is caused by certain accidental means
4. Stars Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson
5. Often cited as a paradigmatic film noir and as having set the standard for the films that followed in that genre

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036775/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Indemnity_(film)

I learnt from this example that a film of the Film Noir genre will often follow a plot line including death, law ('insurance policies'), sex ('provocative') and possibly greed ('doubles the payout'). I also learnt that a character one would probably find is a 'femme fatale' much like the 'provocative housewife' presented in Double Idemnity. 

This film is a strong example of the genre because, as said above, it is 'citied as... having set the standard for the films that followed in the genre' which means that it was a base for other films in the genre and, therefore, a reliable source.

This knowledge could influence my own work when I come to creating my opening title sequence because I could create a 'femme fatale' character and I could also use the plot ideas (such as death and greed) as a base for my own story line. 

Reviewing Class Sweded Films

As a class, we watched each other's productions and shared points and advice for improvement. The main points we concluded were:

• Many of the swedes didn't have a title and credits.
• More of a variety of camera angles/movements could have been used, but this was difficult when the director was also an actor.
• It was difficult when playing more than one character, and the characters could have been distinguished more clearly via costume.
• In one case, the conventions of sweded films were challenged due to editing in transitions using iMovie. This conformed to the film style, however, and the decision was made to keep them.
• In some cases, the speech was not heard clearly because the actors spoke too quietly or the camera was too far away.

Activity 2: The Core Conventions of an Opening Sequence to a Film

• The film title
• Music/sound that conforms to the film genre
• Names (and sometimes images) of the cast and crew
• Any production companies
• An introduction to the main setting/character(s)
• A variety of camera shot types to give an insight to the film genre
• Should build tension and make the audience ask questions and want to keep watching 

I found this presentation on Prezi very helpful.

Acivity 1: Presentations on Opening Sequences of Films

Conventions of an opening sequence from emiliefreddie

Codes and conventions of opening sequences from kcasmedia

An Analysis Of The Opening Sequence Of Vertigo from Media Studies

These are some examples of presentations on opening sequences to films. 

• How successful are they at identifying conventions?
• Personally, I don't think any of these presentations are particularly good at identifying the conventions of opening title sequences. There are fairly good explanations but not all of the conventions have been mentioned. All I've really learnt from them is that the director's, actor's, producer's, distributor's and editor's names are displayed as credits. I don't feel that the presentations have provided much guidance on how to film an opening title sequence as a director.
• Who is the audience?
• The audience ranges from Media/Film students to people who want to be creative and film their first movie (or short movie) and need to learn how to do this.
• What is the purpose of the presentations?
• The purpose of the presentations is to educate others that are interested in developing their knowledge of the key conventions of opening title sequences, possibly purposely providing limited information in order to encourage others to do some independent learning to fill in the rest of the information.
• Is the format successful?
• The first two presentations are successful with their format, as they are clearly showing the information that is needed. However, if I'm honest, I didn't even bother to read the third one, as I much prefer having the conventions stated clearly rather than having to sift through information trying to find the right points.
• Did they identify ALL of the conventions accurately?
• The first two presentations present different conventions, which means that they don't identify all of the conventions of opening title sequences. Also, while the first presentation identifies more conventions, the second identifies less but provides much more detailed explanation and analysis.

My Sweded Movie- Twilight

Create a Copy

Create a Copy
Above is a storyboard I made of my sweded film using a site that I found called StoryboardThat.com which I found quite fun to use. Although I'm not a paying member, so my storyboards are restricted and that's why I had to make mine in two. I decided to use the same people to distinguish my actors rather than using people that related more to the film. The girl in bunches who played the deer, Charlie and Edward represents my friend, Ailbhe. The long-haired girl represents myself playing Bella. The red-haired boy who plays Jacob represents my friend, Connor. And, lastly, the brown-haired boy represents my friend, James, who plays the teacher, the rapist and James.

At first, I chose to swede the film Air Bud which I thought was a popular film because it was one of my favourites during childhood. (As the starring dog was able to score a basket in basketball, I would throw a balloon to my dog for her to knock into the air with her nose, then I would throw a ball the same colour into the basket from a different angle.) However, I asked around and the film apparently wasn't as popular as I thought because nobody I talked to had even heard of it before. I also had limitations to the camera I was using for this first film in that I was unable to edit due to the camera being tape and this meant that I had to keep rewinding the tape to an exact point if I made any mistakes, which I grew very tired of.

I thought again about which movie to swede and decided on Twilight because it is an extremely popular film and I had thought of some ideas to add to the comedy, for example making Ailbhe dress up to look more like Dracula than the character Edward Cullen. I was also given a much better camera to borrow, of which I could edit from on my own laptop once I had found an editing software available to download for a free 30 day trial called Cyberlink Powerdirector. This saved a lot of time. I had so much fun making this, and would love to do something like this again.

Click here to watch the BLOOPERS which I also edited for my own personal entertainment.