Research into opening title sequence - The Boat That Rocked

The opening sequence to The Boat That Rocked is the one opening sequence, out of all three that I studied, that I like the most from. The first two minutes of the film, along with the other two films, is not enough to show the complete opening titles. The Boat That Rocked titles do not starting until two minutes into the film, exactly two minutes. So instead I analysed the opening scene, and carried on through the titles up until the point where 'The Boat That Rocked' is actually advertised.

The film starts with the same sort of diagetic sound as in Notting Hill. A radio tuning in stopping briefly on different radio stations, segments of various nostalgic radio broadcasts; mostly comedy and educational broadcasts that all fit in with the strict principals of the BBC -Inform, Educate and Entertain. This is an excellent way to capture the older audience of the film, the people that survivied the 60's themselves. It would bring so much back to them in a matter of a few seconds. Memories flooding back to them about the times when they themselves listened to such radio stations. The first image is of a quiet urban street, no cars or industrial noises just somebody walking past. A piece of text introduces the year and the context of the story, the lack of music channels and, later on, how pirate radios sprung up to broadcast illegally. A stereotypical working class family are seen going to bed and doing various tasks around the home, a young boy goes to bed and begins to listen to his radio underneath his pillow. More memories flooding back to the audience, remembering when they too listened to such illegal radio stations like Radio Carolina the most infamous. The first character is introduced here, Philip Seymour Hoffman's The Count shown through extrmeley fast, loud and vibrantly coloured clips that show the lifeliness of the radio station and how happy and wild they are. The first paced working of the radio station shown and reflected in the fast cuts between his actions. With the flick of the vinyl knob The Kinks kick in and instantly there is a montage starting of lively and wild people all dancing differently around the UK. This is the style that we want to replicate, the music kicking in, the fast movements, the fast cuts...the rock 'n' roll of the 60's not the boring perfect homely atmosphere shown at the very beginning.

The way that the clips have been cut together, the radio like tuner seen on older radios, is excellent. How it cuts from one clip to another as the radio tunes in. Me and Jack both imagine our piece looking like this, with multiple clips happening so quickly to each other and even possibly over each other? Luckily for us the next clips involved such marvellous ideas a multiple clips playing at once!

This would be the style we would copy. Multple clips of Jack doing different things; getting dressed, smoking, listening to vinyls etc. all playing at the same time as the other one. Not as many cuts to different places though as we would only be following Jacks morning not anybody elses. The multitude of clips used in the part would be brilliant to replicate. Thirty odd different things happening at the same time, so you have to watch it thirty times to see it all.



The clips being used are all of being dancing, showing the stereotypically happy feel of the time and the joy created by the music, the main reason the music is so important to us...it has to capture the feel of the era.


The title for the film only appears for a brief second but it has had such a hyped up introduction, 'All day and all of the night' playing it in that it does not need to be that outlandish and eccentric as the film has already set the bar quite high for having to keep this nostalgic happy mood up throughout the entire piece.