Title Analysis

“ACA Productions”
The first title that appears in our sequence is our fictional company name, “ACA Productions”; we came up with this name simply by using the three first initials of our group members: A = Amy, C = Chloe and A = Ashleigh. Although the way we came up with the name was simple, the effect was professional. This is due to the phonaesthetic company names of the television and film industry for example; BBC. [Pictured above] By using initials it gives a clean, established sound to the production name. Furthermore, in the media, block capitals and bold fonts are often used to illustrate power, establishment and sophistication. To create professionalism and sophistication, italics and other “fancy” fontal styles are also effective. [An example of this is projected by the designer Gucci, above.]
“Under the Influence”
We came up with several film names before deciding the final name. Examples such as “Fluorescent Adolescents”, the inspiration for this came from a song by the Arctic Monkeys, a young, northern UK band whose song title describes young people with a bright flare for life. We thought this was a catchy sounding title but may be a little cheesy and would not appeal to the chosen audience in the right way.
Also “Juvenile” was another name we came up with, literally meaning; ‘Not fully grown up nor developed’. This one-word title looked and sounding pleasing due to other effective film names that consist of only one word. For example, “Gladiator”, it sounds powerful and also catchy. However we thought that “Juvenile”, did not totally illustrate the effect of the sequence.
We wanted the title name to reveal: who should be watching the film, what it would consist of, and how the characters in the film behave. We then started to brainstorm things that affect the modern, young person. Our brainstorm revealed: peer pressure, influencing, fights, stereotypes, change, sex, drugs, music, drink, etc...
Therefore, we thought of what ideas of events we had for our sequence which mainly focused on drunken nights out and differential teenage stereotypes. Finally we came up with the name “Under the Influence”. We were instantly happy with the look and sound of this title as it fully connoted the intended sense and feel of the sequence. We felt it sounded catchy enough for a younger audience and was enough to create a statement about what the sequence would show. “Under the Influence” represents the majority of aspects in stereotypical UK teenage life. Such as, being ‘under the influence’ of drugs, drink, peers and of the opposite sex. All these things prove tempting for a modern teenager and so we hoped that the phonaesthetics of ‘under the influence’ would also coax the teenage audience to watch the film we produced.
We then come to think of character names. We decided to create ‘typical’ names for each stereotype. First of all the “best friend” character played by Chloe Corbett had to have a relatively ordinary name, this makes the character easy for an audience to relate to as she appeals to a wider audience – much like when film producers use the surname Brown, Jones or Smith to appeal to a wide audience, this is because they are popular surnames. Therefore Chloe’s character was names “Emma”. Secondly, we came up with the “chav” name, played by Amy Darby, we wanted a name that sounded working class and that could be said in a ‘common voice’, Charlene was decided for this character. Then we thought that we should be controversial with the “Goth” name as it was decided that the character, played by Ashleigh O’Connor, would have rebelled against her Christian name her parents gave her. So, we had to come up with a ‘sweet’ sounding name that someone could rebel against and become a gothic, rebellious, dark character. Lucy-Mae was decided upon this role.
“Font & Colour”
After deciding the film title we had to decide on a font to show it in. We did not want to show it in italics although in the media this is shown to establish sophistication, as we thought italics would not appeal nor compliment the content of our film. We wanted to show that teenagers go through some ‘wear and tear’ but also want to be noticed as valuable to the general public. Taking this into consideration we searched for a bold font with noticeable ‘cracked’ effects. We published this into the sequence using block capitals and put it onto a black background with purple font. This was to connote a gothic feel and compliment the shots that would follow the titles. As the opening shots are of the three characters in the ‘Goth’s’ bedroom we used a colour scheme in the titles to match this and the mise-en-scene of the bedroom.