Watchmen OTS Deconstruction

Watchmen is a Mystery, Neo-Noir, Comic Book movie. It follows many typical conventions of the Film Noir genre but also adds new ones as this incorporates politics and superheroes. Here is the OTS:


This OTS follows an alternative timeline of American history, where superheroes are a part of everyday life. It incorporates many conventions of an Opening Title Sequence such as credits of the cast and crew, Footage, giving the audience a brief understanding of the film without spoiling any of the film. Every mini-scene, has very smooth camera movement because its all in slow-motion. They follow the lives of superheroes, past ones and the heroes that are the main characters of the film. Each one almost has its own story behind it and they're very understandable as it shows very iconic scenes in American history such as the assassination of J.F.K but then each one has its own twist such as one of the superheroes were responsible for the killing. This is relatable because at the time there were conspiracies going around that the CIA hired someone to assassinate J.F.K. Each scene lets the audience know what period of time. Such as when a TV is playing news, it is about the Vietnam War you know its around 1965 - 1968.

Influences on my own ideas:

• The audience easily pick out different characters through the use of visual semiotics - The use of masks and capes, guns, suitable clothing to their profession.
• I am interested in the way the titles are positioned and angled to look like they're physically interacting with the environment of the shot
• I like the way attention is drawn to key characters by use of depth of field/pull focus / colour and other characters pointing

  

  Example of, a) How the titles interact with the background - shadows, depth of field
  b) How other characters have a different depth of field to  
  others, and how pointing focuses our attention.

• The references of iconic scenes from global events e.g. nurse and soldier kiss, J.F.K assassination

In my Opening Title Sequence I intend to have titles positioned in such a way that it looks like they're interacting with the background. This'll thicken the texture of the OTS, hopefully immersing the audience much more than just plain straight text over the top of the clips. I also want to use props to help the audience know what the time period is or what the current situation is, like a TV or a Newspaper, also positioning the actors in a way that emphasises who the audience should be focusing on most like have some actors looking in the direction of the main characters or directly at them. Using colour to emphasise key objects or characters is another way of drawing audiences focus and increasing their immersion.