TITLES Film Opening Report: Four Lions

I got the template for the report here.
Four Lions  

CHRIS MORRIS (2010)

BBFC 15, MPAA R

Running time of the opening sequence: 3 mins

Budget: £2.5m 
UK/US/World Box Office: $3,7m, $300k, $4.4m.
Theatrical distribution in 19 countries 
  
Production co's:  Film4 Productions, Wild Bunch, Warp Films 
Production financing:  Wild Bunch, Optimum Releasing, Film4
UK, US theatrical distributors: StudioCanal, Magnolia Pictures

LINKS: The Numbers. Box Office Mojo, Wikipedia

TRAILER:
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TITLES                                                                     
Number of people/company names in titles: 

• 3 idents 
• 1 person (director) 
• 4 companies 

Start/end time of main titles: 2:36 - 3:01
Running time of main titles: 25 seconds
Titles in order using exact text:

FILM4 PRESENTS  (CENTERED)
FOUR LIONS (CENTERED)
IN ASSOCIATION WITH WILD BUNCH AND OPTIMUM RELEASING (CENTERED)
A WARP FILMS PRODUCTION (LEFT)        A CHRIS MORRIS FILM (RIGHT)

TITLES ANALYSIS 1: THE COMPANIES
There was credited 4 companies and 3 of these companies had an ident. The only company without an ident was the indie company "WARP FILMS". "Film4"  allowed for the film to be made and is why it is mentioned first as "presents," whereas the other companies were in association with "Film4". By seeing that it is produced by Film4 which is a free view channel we can tell that the movie is going to be a low budget/indie movie, otherwise the channel wouldn't be able to support it. "Wild Bunch" is the film distribution company and is a subsidiary of Filmo TV., it isn't a known company like "Columbia," which further ensures that this is a low budget movie. "Optimum Releasing," is a branch of "StudioCanal UK," which is another distribution company.

TITLES ANALYSIS 2: ROLES
The title only mentions one person and that is the director. This movie has a long cast list and with one A-list star, Benedict Cumberbatch. However this was made before he became popular and is therefore not mentioned in the title. See the full cast list here. It isn't usual that the title sequence has so little detail about the movie


TITLES ANALYSIS 3: GENRE/NARRATIVE CONNOTATIONS

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Here we see the font used throughout the title sequence. Its a sans serif and all capitalised font. It has a grey colour scheme and is quite bland. This connotes that the movie is serious and maybe dramatic. However this is juxtaposed by the starting scenes where there is an obvious dark comedy involved. This means that the comedy is very dark and about a serious topic. 


FIRST SHOT + THE PROTAGONIST
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This first shot instantly sets a serious tone as it is about a very serious topic, terrorism. We know this as there is a man who looks like a stereotypical Muslim with what looks like a jihadi symbol on his hat. The room is empty and there is a curtain as a backdrop with a bland colour scheme. The camera quality is bad, the lighting is bad, the angle is not straight and there is ambient noise in the background. This is how an amateur films. This is how we know it is a recording and not how the film is going to be like. A real film would never unknowingly have a camera set-up like this. It sets the scene as a stereotypical set-up for a terrorist propaganda/scare clip. We aren't sure if this is the main character as there is a voice-over happening.


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We only find out who the main protagonist is a minute later when the scene cuts to another featuring one guy (and his family) from the whole group that was in the first scene filming, looking over the videoclip they filmed. This scene goes on for about 1.5 minutes without cutting to another character, anchoring that this is the protagonist. Now we know it is "in real life" as the lighting, angle, sound and resolution is looks very professional. 



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ADDITIONAL POINTS
 I found the odd mix between the extremist jihadi culture and comedy is applied in the opening scenes as if "it's a normal everyday life." It helps set the perspective from the actual terrorists which in turn let's the audience see how all of this is from a terrorit's POV.