Title Development

The first thing I did was open After Effects and created a new composition. I set the time frame to be around seven seconds as I believed this would be the right length to see each title.

The next step I done was created a text box and typed in what I wanted my title to say. Here I have just used the default text that the software provides.

The first effect I used was called ‘Roughen Edges’ I also decided to change the offset slightly as this changes where the roughen edges were places around the letters as I wanted to give the letters a slight distorted and scary look so that the audience could tell from the titles that something isn’t right.

The next effect I used was called ‘Glow’ I didn’t change the balance for of this effect and I just left it as it is, as it gave the desired effect which I wanted. I added the glow as I felt as if it gave a spooky look to the lettering and it also changed the letter to white, which I would of done anyway if this effect hadn’t done it for me.

The next effect I chose was called ‘Dust & Scratches’ this effect was seen later on in the process as useful and effective, as right now it doesn’t seem to give the letter that much effect, it does make the lettering a little darker and again this help to create the effect that something bad was going on.

The next thing I done was added an effect called ‘Fractural noise’ which added a slight opaque effect to the letterings. I also changed the fractural types to ‘Turbulent sharp’ so this meant that the letters were more sharp and the effect was seen more visibly. And I also changed it to invert and the overflow was changed to ‘wrap back’. All this helps to adjust the effect so that it fitted to my theme and thriller film more.

The next effect I added was called ‘Directional Blur’ this gave the letter a more blurry feel to them and as they are later going to be animated this help to give that jittering look that I wanted so that it fitted better with the theme of my production.

I then added an effect called ‘Levels’ this helped the letter to regain that white colour that I wanted and it also adjusted the colour and brightness of the white. I changed the input of black to 230.2 to add a darker background tone to the letters. I also changed the input to white to 175.9 which added the brightness of the white to contrast better with the black. It overall creates more glow and spooky look that I was hoping to achieve.

The next effect I added was called ‘tritone’ it helped to colour correct the letters and change the colouring slightly so that it had an overall better look. I also added another one of this effect and instead of having the brown colour as seen below I changed it to a blue tone, so that it had a cold feel to the lettering.

I then added another ‘Fractal Noise’ and this time it gave a better effect (as seen below) I adjusted a couple of things on the left hand side to achieve this look. O firstly changed the fractal type to dynamic, and this gave me the more faded look to the letters. I then changed the contrast of the letter to 200 and this gave the faded look as seen below. This was getting me closer to my spooky look that I wanted for my letters.

I then added another ‘Glow’ effect and I changed the threshold to 95 and the glow radius to 100, and this gave a slightly darker glow to the letters behind and a brighter feel to each individual letter and they became more readable.

I then used the ‘tritone’ effect again and this help to make the letter have a darker feel to them and make them fade slightly. This again helped me get closer to my desired effect of a spooky feel.

The next effect I applied was the ‘Fade out by Character effect’ and I just changed the time frame to adjust the timing of when I wanted his to happen. This helped with making the titles stereotypical to that of a thriller as a lot of films use the fade out effect on titles to create a scary effect.

This is another title I have used using the same effects, I finished it off by adding a few more effects such as ‘3D’ of the letters, Fading in of the letters, and also the jumpy effect that makes the latters shake a little.

Overall this all resulted in getting my desired titles which befitted the conventions of the thriller genre of which I have done research into. These titles help to define that this is a thriller genre and this helps to relate every aspect of my opening sequence into the theme of the thriller genre.