Inventive Titles- Sopranos

Following my research into the themes within Sopranos, I wanted to focus on the main theme which is Tonys mental health. I find that when people thing of Sopranos the first thing that comes to mind is gangsters, however the main focus of the show is Tonys mental health, him being a gangster is just part of his life. I researched into depression as this is the illness that Tony is diagnosed with, I wanted my opening title sequences to reflect this in someway.

I then got onto thinking about puppets, Tony has so many issues to think about in his life. This leads to him telling lies or saying and doing things to make people happy. I thought a puppet would be a good symbol of this this to use in my opening title sequence. However following this I started to think about ventriloquism dummies. As mentioned before Tony says a lot of things to please people or cover his back, perceiving him to be under control of others around him. I also thought the dummy would be symbolic of him talking to his therapist.

I also wanted to include a chair into my sequence to represent the therapist chair that Tony sits in throughout every series of The Sopranos.  The chair that I used in the sequence spun around. So i filmed it spinning multiple times.

The other aspect I wanted to include was the medication that Tony takes. I filmed loads of pills falling onto a table as well as a man (my dad) eating one.



Editing

I wanted to keep this sequences quite simplistic so didn't do much editing. With the spinning chair I put it in slow motion which made the shot feel much more intense. As well as this I made the falling pills into slow motion as well as reversing them, followed my a man eating them. This was to represent the excessive consumption of pills that he takes. I added my text using iMovie, I was able to adjust how the text entered and left the shot. As well as adjust the colour/ font and size of the text.

Soundtrack

I wanted to make a soundtrack to tie in with the theme of Tonys mental health. I made the soundtrack using garageband. The majority of the sound used in this was spun clips from the programme that highlights Tony's issues. As the sequences develops the clips overlap each other. Throughout the sequence is a heartbeat that is increasing and at the end is the sound of a man having a panic attack. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlrVy7tUAAw

Comments from the crit:

• Eerie
• Liked the slow motion
• Pills work- symbolism
• Really like the chair = pace, intense