Kyle Cooper

Kyle Cooper is a motion picture title sequences designer. He has produced over 150 opening sequences, for many major movies including Spider man, dawn of the dead etc. He received major critical acclaim for his work in the movie seven, where he presented his work creatively, in an artistic form, it was hailed by New York Times Magazine as “One of the most important design innovations of the 1990s”.

Cooper studied graphic design at the yale school of art, where he earned an MFA, here he studies independently with paul rand. He also studied at the university of massachusetts.

In 1996, he co-founded and named creative agency Imaginary Forces, which is a studio for  branding, digital product design, commercial production, and experience design. he also set up the company "prologue films", in 2003 which focused on main title design, but now does motion, graphic, game and interactive design. He now holds the honorary title of Royal Designer for Industry from the Royal Society of Arts in London.



In this clip from se7en, Cooper uses meathods in the sequence to intorduce the dark and eaarie atmosphre that is portrayed in the rest of the film. Cooper shoots zoomed in, close ups of small moovements, such as the turning of a page or cutting up a peice of paper in slow motion, These images displayed are often disturbing for example when we see someone peeling their skin, or when we see a close up shot of a needle. He also uses a dark settinging with a limited clolour palate, and changes the way the shadow is shown against the background to indicatate that the something is mooving. He also used the meathod of overlaying the two actions such as when someone is writing. Coooper also uses the meathod of flahing the images to a show a deliberate harsh transition, creating a spooky atmosphere. All these sequences are shown whilst an eerie yet jumpy non diabetic background music is being played in order to portray a glimpse of the uneasy atmosphere of what is to come in 
the rest of the movie.

TIME	TEXT WHICH APPEARS	WHAT THAT PERSON OR PERSONS ROLE (S) IS/ARE
00:04	New line cinema presents	The institution that made it
00:07	An Arnold Kopelson Production	Producer
00:11	A film by David Flincher	director
00:16	Brad Pitt	actor
00:19	Morgan Freeman	actor
00:22	Seven	title
00:30	Gwyneth Paltrow	actress
00:35	Richard Rowntree	actor
00:39	R.Lee Ermey	actor
00:42	John c. Mc Ginley	actor
00:49	Julie Arasknog Mark Boone	Actors
00:52	Peter Crombie John Cassini	actors
00:57	Hawthorne James	actor
1:12	Billy Hopkins Suzanne smith Kerry Borden	Casting
1:16	Howard Shore	Music
1:21	Micheal Kablan	Costume designed
1:25	Richard Francis Bruce	Edited by
1:28	Arthur Max	Production Designer
1:34	Darius Khondji	Director of photgraphy
1:39	Stephan Brown Hannah Greenwald	Co-producers
1:44	Lynn Harris Richards Superstein	Coexecutive producers
1:50	Anne Kaplesun Dankols Rud	Executive Producers
1.54	Andrew kevin Walker	Written by
1:59	Arnold Kopleson	Producer
2:05	David Fincher	Dircetor

I looked at the order of the title sequences and at the institutional context. That the first titles that appere are institutions that made it (eg new line cinema). Following this the producer and directors names come up. This is continued by the names of the lead acotors and actresses (eg Bradd Pitt/ Morgan Freeman). After this, the rest of the actors names are displayed. The names of the producers/ creative designers/ editers are left untill last, however the final name seems to be the director.

In the opening sequence of spider man, Cooper uses the method of  taking a key comonent of the moovie, eg the spiders web and using it as a border in order to creatively display different and repeted images of different characotrs. He also shows this three dimentianally and shows close ups of the web itself inorder to indicate what is to follow.

We conducted empirical research into target audience for films our from our small scale research of 25 people of both male and female genders we came to the following conclusions as to what different ages like about films.

15-24 males

• want excitement action and mostly enjoy action adventure and thrillers. 
• They are influenced by what their friends want abut films
• They will mostly watch a film if there friends say that its good
• Influenced by how attractive the female actress is

15-24 females

• Girls want a film that makes them think about something
• They are also influenced by what their friends say about a film
• They want an attractive lead actor or actress
• Are more likely to watch a film if the trailer is good and if there is lots of advertising promoting it
• Are less likely to watch thriller than boys, more likely to watch romcoms but will watch a thriller if the character is well developed and if the actor is attractive.

The over 25-55

We interviewed a range of 25-55 year olds and found that they are influenced by the following:

• Whether the film makes them think about life and question things
• Whether actors are believable in the roles
• Favourite  genres are sci-fi and thrillers
• Were also influenced by how film critics reviewed the film when deciding whether to watch it.

 Development of our Thriller

We have made major progress in the development of our thriller since our last meeting. We have developed more precise ideas of what costumes, sets and props we would like to be in our thrillers. We have have also discussed what type of camera shots we would like to include, such as lots of close ups of the painters hands and paintbrushes in a sepia or black and white setting. We have also  and come up with some visually creative sequences for example we have decided to include blood or paint dripping and falling to reveal the outline of shapes.

Account of our pitch

I think that the account of our pitch went very well. this is due to our different roles of explaining  going through the power point and writing down Matt's comments. We received very positive feedback and gave us names of other sequences to look at in order to give us inspiration, he also gave us some creative ideas of how we could create a more psychological, intellectual air to our thriller.

Thriller Idea

Our group decided upon our idea through each of us discussing any ideas which we had thought of previously, we then disussed what ideas we thaught we could work with and add to in  order to get the best reuslt. we decided upon sams idea of basing our thriller around a mad artist, obsessed with the purity of the three graces. I personally really like this idea as it is based on a  physologically damaged man, meaning that it is open to creative elements being added into the sequence. 

We diecided to pitch our idea on a powerpoint, we used a swirled style theme with a black background, this is in order to emphasize the meaningful, yet dark, depressing atmosphere which will hopefully be conveyed in our sequence. 

Blood of Purity

A Supernatural thriller

 The plotline of a supernatural thriller involves elements of fantasy or science fiction. For example, usually, the central protagonist has otherworldly powers or abilities. You may expect to see ghosts, vampires or dead people.  This sdub-genre also usually contains high levels of suspense and tension which is created through interesting plotlines and  twists with elements of mystery. You may also expect to hear high levels of non diagetic gohstly background music in order to establish this tension. or elements of blood and gore.  Supernatural Thrillers include "What lies beneath", "The sixth sence" and "The others".



We can tell that this is a clip from a supernatural thriller due to the non diagetic screeching background music in odrer to slowly build the tension. The meathod of steam in the bathroom has also been used in order to desquise what might be in the bath, so the atmoshere is sustained for a longer time period. blood and the suggestion of a supernatural being is also expressed.

A Phychological Thriller

A psychological thriller is specific whereby it involves the protagonist to be in an emotionally unstable state. Physiological thrillers usually involve elements of mystery and drama combined with traits of a thriller. You may expect to see short fast editing, and disorientated viewpoints creating surreal aspects. This is especially apparent in the horror combined physiological thrillers. Physiological thrillers may also revolve around the troubled mental state of the characters, or involve mystery between the realities of the protagonist’s hindered perception. Psychological thrillers include “Inception”, “The Black Swan” and “Seven".
 

In this clip from "Inception, we hear muftled diageticsounds, giving the audicne doubts as to weather we are veiwing reality, this notion is enhanced as due to the increacingly loud non diagetic background music indicating that he cant thisnk stright, and that his troubled mental state has taken over.

                                                 A Political Thriller

The plotline for a political thriller will usually be based on a political power struggle, with aspects of corruption, terrorism or warfare. In this subgenre you may expect to see the involvement of spying or conspiracy scenarios; many are also based on true events. Political thrillers include JFK and The ghost writer. 

This clip from JFK fits the political thriller genre due to the mentioning of assasination against the president who was obviously a major political power. He also speaks of murder and conspiracy.

We spent two lessons editing our preliminary tasks. First, we checked into the "final cut pro" program on the mack, and created a "Log bin" folder. We then played back all of the footage taken, and transfered the dsired shots that we wanted to use into the log bin. Then, be began to edit the film, by cutting and peacing together the scenes, so that all the edits are invisible, to ensure a smooth transition between the shots and to retain continuity. For example, we decreaced the shot duration as the scene went on in order to increace the pace and express tension. We also placed a wide angle establishing shot at the beginning of the sequence to set the scene. We also tried to include many different types of shots to vary the sequence, and make it interesting from the audience, through integrating close up shots, mid shots, long shots and point of view shots. We also changed some of the sound, to ensure that it is integrated with the editing, and so that it matches the action on the screen.I very much enjoyed editing, especially the aspects of peacing the scenes together in order to retain contenuity. However, I found the software quite complex and challenging to use at the beginning, however by the end of the two lessons I felt i was getting the hang of it quite well.

The Shawshank Redemption Powerpoint