Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese) Title Sequence Analysis

 Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese) Title Sequence Analysis

Taxi Driver is a film directed by Martin Scorsese in 1976 starring Robert De Niro. It is considered among the best films ever produced because of its unique and unexpected plot line, inclusion of a young Robert De Niro and how it differed to any movie at the time.

The sequence starts off with a bare black screen with "Columbia Pictures presents” in the centre in red text. This sets an ominous and gory tone for the movie, which it later turns out to be, through the common link between the colour red and blood. Columbia Pictures is the production company which produced Taxi Driver. At this point, there is no music just complete silence. This adds to the sense of ominousness as the viewer has no indication of any aspects of the movie, apart from the red text and the knowledge of what the Production Company was called. The Columbia Pictures text fades out and the text “Robert De Niro in” fades in, in the same red blood-like colour. This tactic of mentioning a well known actor featured in the movie is to get people recognising the big stars. The makes the viewer excited to see the actor in the movie. When this text fades out, the iconic main title music from Taxi Driver fades in alongside a video of a classic yellow New York taxi, driving through a plume of smoke. This is a stationary shot and as the taxi starts to go out of the shot, the title text of “Taxi Driver” in LED text comes into shot. This is an example of editing as it is not actually an LED light, but one edited in. The smoke in this shot makes the viewer feel as if they are being smothered and that there is something they are not allowed to see. The music continues playing throughout this scene, however, after the car had passed and the title text had faded there was 1-2 second text overlays of the various actors in the film. The music in the shot is heavy, in that it has loud, triumphant sound, as opposed to soft and subtle music. 

The smoke scene fades into a shot between the eyes of a man. In addition, the music had faded out into a saxophone melody. This contrast makes the viewer feel slightly safer and calmer as the music prior was loud and ominous. This shot between the mans eyes goes on for 12 seconds and throughout there are different colours reflecting onto this mans upper face. This makes it look like he is driving in the night and the different signs and lights are reflecting onto him. It then cuts to a shot of the can windscreen, showing the source of the lights reflecting onto his face. Because the viewer gets a shot from inside the car, it brings a sense of safeness and cosiness through the way that the man is inside his car, warm and outside it is cold and raining. This goes on for another 20 seconds, however, 10 seconds into the shot, there is a change of music, back to the hectic and loud music heard at the start of the title sequence. Towards the end of the shot, there are views of other people walking at a traffic light, late at night, smiling and visually having fun. This makes the man focused on look like a castaway from society as he is not enjoying the night, but driving a taxi. The last shot is a faded cut back between the mans eyes, with a red light constantly on his face. In addition to the red text at the start of the film when introducing the actors and production company, there has been a large gore theme to this title sequence, connoting that there is danger coming for this man and that he is not safe. 

PLANNING: Treatment

 Treatment for the film Suspect

Suspect starts off with a Detective receiving an envelope from his assistant followed by the assistant telling the Detective that someone is on the line regarding what’s inside this envelope. The detective picks up the phone and looks concerned when he hears that a girl called Lottie Wilson had died. This cuts to a flashback of the detective leaning over a man’s hospital bed saying “As long as I’m alive, nothing will happen to Lottie”. There is then a cut back to the detective looking sad, determined and angry. It's as if at the moment he heard what was said on the phone, he was determined to put the man behind this, in prison or worse.

The next scene shows Alan Cook fishing by a riverside, talking to an imaginary person next to him, showing his insanity, whilst laughing to himself about how he thought he caught a fish but it was actually an orange peel. 

As he is fishing, Herbert Crafts is walking by and bumps into him. Alan Cook gets angered by this and shouts “watch yourself lad”. Herbert retorts under his breath with “calm down you prat”. He is on the phone to a colleague, evidently running late, asking if a meeting can be delayed for his purpose. While he is walking in a hurry, he passes by a house with blaring music coming from the top window and says “Jesus” in a disgusted manner. 

The next scene goes from the street where Herbert was walking to where Kieran Tucker is waking up with a can of beer and possibly a cigarette in his hand. 

After this, there is a hard cut back to The Detective, where he picks up the phone and says that he will take the case. After this, he opens the envelope in front of him, showing the three men’s profiles. 

Semiotics

 

Semiotics

Barthes' semiotic theory broke down the process of reading signs and focused on their interpretation by different cultures or societies. According to him, signs were a signifier, physical form of the sign as we perceive it, and the interpreted. 

A sign is a symbol, colour, camera angle. Something a viewer can infer meaning from. Two types of meaning; denotation and connotation. Denotation is the literal meaning of the sign, connotation is the meaning the sign could be interpreted as. For example, the Apple logo could be denoted as a literal white Apple with a bite taken out of the right hand side of it, whereas, looking at it from a connotation point of view, the Apple logo could mean mass consumerism, the takeover of the world by large Corporations. Connotations depend on culture, opinion and background of a person, as different people may look at different signs, with different perspectives. For example, some may see Apple as sweat shops, unfair labour depending on those listed factors. 

In film language, there are 4 signs that are encoded. This is Mise-En-Scene, sound, camera work and editing. 

I watched Tales of Terror from Tokyo and found out how much someone can understand from signs in the text and how different people interpret the video. For example, there was a large feeling of terror because of how innocent the child is, the claustrophobia of the room, the cold colour; all part of the Mise-En-Scene of the film. With the sound, there is this eerie chiming noise, followed by dead silence. This contrast in sound is a perfect example of how a jump from noise to silence is effective in creating tension. The camera work always shows where the girl is, creating this safe feeling, as the viewer can see where the girl is at all times. On the contrary the viewer is not given a wide angle view, creating this feeling that the culprit could be anywhere near the girl, creating and holding tension. 

                                                               The Rhetoric of the Image

Distribution notes

Slide 1 - research into a distribution campaign by a Hollywood major - https://www.blogger.com/u/1/blog/post/edit/8146833456752376871/630321656159173604

Slide 2 - How would an independent film company - Social media; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, creating a sub Reddit for the film to create a community-like discussion forum, creating hype for the movie.

Slide 3 - Posters; put the poster onto the slide and give a short description

Slide 4 - film website; give example and description - Bait has website

Slide 5 - Sorry We Missed You film website - show screenshots of features

Slide 5 - film festivals; Cannes and other ones where small producers can showcase their films on a wide scale, appealing to the hip, indie market

Slide 6 - FDA presentation Mark Batey; have to identify what genre my film is and what the USP is. Could do individual slides in what, why and when on the FDA mark batey website

- Considerations from the video made by Entertainment One UK, Kezia Williams who is theatrical distribution:

Hooks, genre, characters, USP: Whats different about my film that gives it a sense of uniqueness.

Need to include target audience

Look at films similar to the one I am making - draw differences, similarities, USP's etc

CONSTRUCTION: FILMING

 We had filmed on the 10/12/20 using this script filming in the drama studio. Due to our high expectations we were not satisfied for the filming we had partaken in that day, and we felt as if we need to do better. Due to this we will be keeping this idea of a film opening, however, changing the angle and dynamic of our film opening. 

Risk Assessment

 In this post, I will be explaining all the risks that will be present when we are filming/editing this film opening. This will hopefully also give us an idea on how to reduce or minimise these risks, making the filming and editing of the production of this film opening as safe and secure as humanly possible. 

The first part of filming we will be doing is the interrogation scene. One of the risks that are present in the shooting of this film opening is placing a bag over the suspects' head at the start of the scene. We will have to do this tactically, as if left on for too long, the person can be suffocated. To reduce this occurring we can make sure the bags aren't on their head for a prolonged amount of time. This can be done by having a timer and knowing exactly when to take the bags off. This will also help the organisation of our film opening. 

Another risk in our film opening is crossing the road when going to the river. This is dangerous as we will have to cross multiple main roads, which is extremely dangerous as cars are travelling at extremely high speeds. We can reduce this risk through only crossing the road where there is a traffic light and not J-walking (crossing the road where there is no traffic light) to minimise the risk of us possibly getting hit by a car. 

Another risk is possibly falling into the water when walking next to the small river next to the Princess Alice Hospice. Our plot requires us to film next to a river, meaning we will have to be careful in that no one falls into the river, as the waters are rough and there is a slight chance of drowning if you are in those waters at cold temperatures. To minimise this risk we will only walk, not run past the river to make sure we are being extremely cautious in where we step. 

One of our characters owns a fishing rod. The end of a fishing rod has a hook, which in some cases are extremely sharp. This sharp hook on the fishing rod would be enough to pierce skin, meaning we will have to be careful when handling with the fishing rod. To do this we will be wearing thick gloves which means that even if the hook touches the glove, it will not tear through it. 

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