​AARON'S AS MEDIA

We were tasked with chosing a title-sequence that belongs to a film that we believed we would make our film in the same genre as. I chose David Fincher's The Social Network, the 2012 movie adaption of the story of the world's youngest billionaire and creator of the social networking site Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. This is one of my favourite films; I love David Fincher's directing style and Aaron Sorkin's screen-writing, I think their collaboration, along with many established actors, made for an excellent film.

The titles of the film aren't the very opening scene. The opening scene is of a pub-meeting between Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) and his then girlfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara). The scene ends when Erica abruptly breaks-up with Mark calling him an "asshole". The classical song Hand Covers Bruise (by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross) begins to play. This gives the audience a feeling that something is begining, a thought-process has begun. The song also suggests things advancing, this could reference Mark & Erica's relationship, Mark's current thought process, social media websites or, simply, Zuckerberg's journey home. Mark, then left at the table, gets up and departs the pub for the titles to begin in a scene otherwise known as as 'The Running Home Scene'. 

As Mark leaves 'The Thirsty Scholar', on the campus of Harvard University, the first title is entered at the bottom-middle of the screen in a smart, sleek technological font, in fact the same font used on Facebook. The following shots follow Mark's journey through the campus as the titles simplisticly unfold from various parts of the screen.  The title sequence was filmed on-site at Harvard University, Massachusetts, without a permit. Eissenberg revealed, this whole scene of the movie was 'stolen' because the film didn't have a "100 million dollar budget". According to David Fincher, Harvard University were not very welcoming with the filming and "restricted" were they were allowed to film. Despite having these troubles, Fincher did an amazing job of choosing the right shots and putting them together to illustrate Mark's journey back to his dorm room. 

The second shot of the title sequence is a panorama-shot that follows Mark crossing the street from the pub. The streets and road are busy although Zuckerberg is noticibly the only pedestrian running, this makes him stand-out and confirms to the audience that they're following him and not just looking at a panorama. The fact the streets are busy and Zuckerberg is just another person in the crowd gives the impression that huge ideas are created all the time, in ordinary places and that a worldwide social phenomenon can be triggered in a busy pub and everyone else carrys on with their journey without 'batting an eyelid'. Everything carrries on regardless of the situation, this is also portrayed through the titles as regardless of what's happening on screen they continue to role, simplistically and fashionably. I think the minimalistic visual impact of the titles on the audience is to keep the attention on Mark, his journey home, the beautiful setting and directing of David Fincher and his team. 

The titles work very well with the scene behind them, there is no direct interaction between the two, although the positioning is occassionally adpated so the text fits in seemlessly and celeverly with the background (as seen at, for example, 0:56 of the video above). The text never inteferes or takes attention away from the scene, it compliments it nicely. The fact the text is bright white against the sepia kind of tone of the video make them stand out slightly and gives the scene a more technological feel, balancing Zuckerberg's creation with his begining and back story. 

Overall, I believe the title sequence/running home scene of The Social Network is very well put together and thought of. It's original, different, simplistic, seemless and beautiful. Everything in the scene works well together and has the right impression on the audience; the screen-play, the setting, the mise en scene, the music and the text.