Mean Streets (1973) — Art of the Title

To view the opening title sequence of Mean Streets; please click the link below:
Mean Streets (1973) — Art of the Title

The film begins with the logo and name of the production company, which is in this particular film, was the parent company of Warner Bros. Pictures and Warner Music Group; Warner Communications company. As the production company allows films to change the colour of the background and the logo itself to relate to the film. Therefore; the hue bright red connotes blood, love and rage, whereas, this deeper, darker red connotes power and lust.

The opening title sequence begins with a voice over from the director; Martin Scorsese. This technical code helps to illustrate the tone of film and the major themes. Scorsese begins with "You don't make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home", this reveals to the audience that religion and life on the "streets" conflict with each other and that the protagonist will experience some form of moral dilemma. The life on the streets itself connotes danger, possible gangster/mafia activity and the character's association with a mafia, or, possibly him trying to escape from the mafia.

Scorsese uses diegetic sound of the protagonist, Charlie, shuffling through his bedroom. The use of diegetic gives the film verismilitude and the sound of police sirens tells the audience Charlie lives in an area where crime is frequent and the police patrol the streets; this relates back to the title Mean Streets. Charlie's blase attitude to the police sirens shows that Charlie is accustomed to the noise of sirens.

Scorsese uses match-on-action of Charlie lying in bed and resting his bed on a pillow. However the cutting between shots is delayed by 0.5 seconds so it gives the sequence a feel of repetition of Charlie resting his head on a pillow, but between every cut on the match-on-action closes in on Charlie's face, moving from a close-up to an XCU.

Scorsese then uses The Ronettes - Be My Baby as a sound bridge to the actual title opening sequence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-0upHlWfQ4

The production teams credits are overlaid in front of a film projector, this is clever as the object (projector) is commonly associated with the roles of the director and producers.

This image below names the production company (distributors). It also informs the public and other production companies that the rights to this film (art); Mean Streets are exclusively's Warner Bros. Studios. The cinematographer used a grainy yellow/green filter so it appears this sequence was actually shown from a projector, but also it makes the image of the streets look dirty, again tying the image back to the title. It also helps set the location for the audience, as they can now clearly see the film was hot in New York. The text for the title of Mean Streets is placed over the image in bright red emphasizing the genre of the film.

In regards to crediting the actors, the names are placed around the action taking place. This shows the resourcefulness of the editing team as they understood the limitations of a film projector (the action may not fill the whole screen, so you're left with darkness around the shots) and turned the limitations into advantages.

Genre of The Title Sequence

As a group, Fatima, Tanisha, Indiya and I decided the genre of our opening title sequence will be a romantic comedy. I feel this genre is actually more challenging than perhaps, thrillers. This is due to there is more creative freedom in a thriller, but I like a challenge also. We had to investigate the conventions of our chosen film genre so I made a presentation below, stating some of the main features that occur in romantic comedies. Despite the fact we should aim to stick to certain conventions to make our film easily recognisable to the audience, hopefully we can break one or two film conventions.

Here is the presentation:

Romantic Comedy Title Sequence on Prezi

Character Profile

Production Schedule

Production Schedule by Indya Phillips 

Final Synopsis

As a collective, we decided Tanisha's idea for a romantic comedy was the best, so we're are going to film Tanisha's synopsis. The synopsis will be entered below

Synopsis

Bridget, a successful magazine editor who is popular amongst her female colleagues. Bridget's success stops there as she is unable to attract the right kind of men. Fed up with her relationship struggle, Bridget uses her millions to invest in a makeover. Bridget, now beautiful, has now become the centre of men's attention and at first relishes in the attention she receives.  After a while, she still feels lonely as she acknowledges there is something lacking with these men she dates. Then at a work function she meets a man, Andy. Bridget and Andy quickly fall in love, and get engaged.  Andy takes Bridget to meet his parents, Bridget riddled with guilt confesses that she had a makeover and how she has been presented with the opportunity to look like her former self. To her surprise, Andy has a secret of his own, he too has had a makeover. Both of them choose to go back to how they used to look and get married. The end.

Final Script

Final Script

Synopsis of Romantic Comedy. Main Task

I guess it's wise to create a film that stick to the genre conventions, as it is easier to identify what film genre we chose as the basis of our film.

Characters

Kate - Blonde hair and blue eyes, sports reading glasses.  Meek and has a wry smile. Uses dry or dark humour, cynical but deep-down a hopeless romantic.

Mark - Brown hair, brown eyes. Popular but resents his popularity; he feels it pushes him away from Kate and has been in love with kate since they were children.

Joseph 'J' - Childhood friend of both Kate and Mark, funny, quirky one, dies in teens.
Mike 'Monster' Jones - Arrogant, cocky, jock. Mike's suffering from depression but tries to cover it up through humour
Tony - Boring, but incredibly handsome assistant to Kate. Kate and Tony date briefly, Kate breaks off the relationship; but they remain friends. (Mark suspects Tony of being gay, but is ambiguous if he is in fact a closeted homosexual, or, if Mark is just jealous)
Britney and Bobbi - Lesbian Couple. Britney is the soft-spoken, charming, uglier of the two. Bobbi is angry, sarcastic, pretty and self-deprecating. They both love to give relationship advice, despite their relationship being on shaky grounds.
Stacey - Attractive, ambitious, but dumb assistant to Mark. She has a crush on Mark. They have a one-night stand and she is left heartbroken.

Synopsis

A group of three kids who spend years as friends together, from age 6, in playful abandon to hanging out with each other in their mid-teens. Then... one day Joseph dies in a tragic skiing accident. The death of Joseph destroys the friendship as neither one can bear to see each other, when they look at the other all they see is Joseph. Years later they meet, (coincidentally) at a party for a Manhattan magazine company, as Mark has just been appointed at the magazine where Kate works, and this an introduction party for Mark. They repair their broken friendship. After a couple of months, Mark confides into Mike (his best friend that he met in New York) and confesses his love for Kate. Meanwhile, at Kate's apartment, Kate is receiving advice from her friends, Britney and Bobbi (known as the Black and Blues), suggesting she goes on a date with Tony. Kate is reluctant to the idea of dating Tony at first (she recognises she has feelings for Mark, but doesn't believe the feeling's mutual), she then agrees to go on a date with Tony. They both enjoy themselves and each other in these series of dates. Once Mark hears the news of Kate and Tony; overcome with jealousy, has sex with Stacey. Couple of weeks later, Kate informs Mark that she has broken up with Tony, and he tells her about Stacey. Kate is disgusted by Mark's behaviour, an argument ensues resulting neither party talking to each other for weeks. Mark wanting to apologise to Kate and confess and profess his love for her, approaches her house with flowers. Kate ushers him in. Mark gets straight to the point: he apologises for his actions to both Kate and Stacey; he the opens up to Kate and states the reasoning of his actions. Kate tears up and also proclaims her feelings for Mark. They share a passionate kiss. The film fades into ending credits.