Title Sequence

For this project I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do I just knew I wanted to try and expand on my live action work to improve it. I think this project really helped me out in learning different camera techniques and helped me to learn how to adjust the aperture and shutter speed to suit the conditions. I changed my idea a few times, at the start I wanted to do something dark and gloomy but I changed to a more upbeat idea doing the Juno title sequence as I thought I could make it look better.

I chose my idea because through research I found the Napoleon Dynamite title sequence which I really liked the style of. I also wanted to using pastel colours similar to the Rex Orange County music video. I thought the title sequence was the most simple but effective method of showing all of the actors names in a creative way. After getting feedback from Geraint he gave me some help on how to film the objects similar to cooking videos with a birds eye camera angle which I thought was a good idea and tried to stick with it.

What I liked about my title sequence is the font I’ve used for the names it’s called ‘Moon Flower’ and I really think it helps to suggest the theme of school and unprepared teens as it isn’t very organised and looks handwritten. I also liked how some of the shots worked out like the sunny d drink in the fridge. I had to position the camera so that it would open in the perfect position. I think that turned out well. Also I like the text for Jason Bateman and how it swings which supports the meaning of it.

I’ve ensured the title sequence has some meaning behind it in order to prepare the viewer for the film and have some hidden meanings they won’t understand yet until they’ve delved deeper. These are the meanings - 

Text - Used a wiggle effect and turbulent displacement so that it looks more handwritten as the main characters in the show are high school students and the film is sort of how they are dealing with the situation.

Letters on the fridge - Relates to kids play toys as Juno has a baby and won’t see it grow up as it’s given away as soon as they’re born.

Sunny D - The meaning behind this is purely because she drinks sunny d a lot and she drinks ‘her weight in sunny d’ before taking multiple pregnancy tests before she finds out she’s pregnant.

Red Jumper walking - This shot is just to suggest Juno on her way to taking the pregnancy test and she always wears a red jumper which is quite iconic because it shows she’s still just a teenager in an adult situation.

Yellow shorts - These are the shorts the father wears in his high school running team so these also hint at how unprepared the teens are.

Pregnancy test - I used a negative pregnancy test for Jennifer Garner’s name because she can’t have a baby. She is the adopted parent. I made the text fall off the test because it gives a more homemade look and it shows her life sort of falls apart towards the end without her planning.

Tic Tacs - The father eats a lot of tic tacs throughout as their his favourite candy and Juno uses them to connect with him towards the end to show she’s still in love with him by filling his post box with tic tacs. 

Baby nails - I put the baby at the end to suggest that is the end result a baby is still born but it doesn’t suggest whether the baby is adopted still or Juno keeps it, it’s up for debate. I decided to record my little brother’s hands because in the film Juno goes against aborting her baby because her school mate was protesting the abortion saying that babies have fingernails which changed her mind. I decided to put Juno’s parents names at the end because they are really supportive throughout and I tried to make the text sort of look like tears being wiped away by adding a directional blur and I made the text move together as the situation brings the whole family together.

I’ve learnt some new skills throughout this process like adding different types of effects to text and colour grading. Although I think I could improve on these skills a lot more as they didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped. Another thing that I didn’t like about this title sequence is that the sound doesn’t sync up very well with the visuals. I feel like I didn’t focus enough time on it. I also didn’t like the colour correction on it, I think the shorts part is way too dark after I rendered it out. It looked okay in Premiere but didn’t look the same when I exported it. I also don’t like how it looks quite unprofessional like the end, the text coming together doesn’t look very clean cut and also the fridge closing didn’t look as smooth as I would have liked. I didn’t really like how the stop motion turned out either the lighting changes too radically. Could’ve also spent more time editing the text so it looked more like handwriting.

Set Up

Draft 2

Colour Correction

This is a before and after the colour correction I did using lumetri colour. It turned out okay but I think I really need to improve on this. One issue was that in Premiere it looked different to the rendered version so I could never get it right.

First draft

Meaning: Jennifer Garner’s character is not pregnant and she can’t have kids so she is frustrated taking lid off trying again. Her name falls off as her hopes and dreams are constantly failing. 

Test for a wiggly font

Did a few tests for the text to find the one i liked the most, this was my favourite although i think i’m still going to make it wiggle more to make it look more realistic.

Below is how I’ve done it, Geraint helped me.

Process

First I arranged all of the shots into the order i wanted them to go in then i edited the music and trimmed the clips to fit. Then I went into after effects to edit each section with the names on.

First I listed all of the items I wanted to include and quickly drew up some ways in which I could show them. Then I chose my favourite methods and wrote the order in which I wanted them to occur. I decided to start off with the red jumper as it introduces the character of Juno.

I wanted the title sequence to flow like a bit of a story so it starts off with introducing the characters and then the pregnancy test suggesting a baby could be on its way and then the baby at the end. I thought it would be good to end it with the fridge closing abruptly like the story quickly comes to an end as the baby is adopted by someone else.

Music

The original music for the title sequence for Juno really fits in with the rest of the film so I’m going to try and find something similar. This is the original:

The music throughout the film Juno is quite upbeat and relies on a sort of acoustic ukulele sound. This gives off a relaxing happy feeling so when the music changes to something more serious it is very noticeable. The song below is the song used at the end of the film which is happy but also sad at the same time it just has a warm feeling to it, I want to find something like this.

The music is very raw, stripped down to just a guitar and the vocals which is really refreshing to listen to compared to the overproduced music at the moment. This is the music from the Napoleon Dynamite intro which I think has a few similar themes to Juno and so would fit the title sequence for it. I think this is my final choice for the title sequence because it fits the theme and has a natural sound.