Title Sequence

I have been working on a title sequence for the trailer showreel recently, which featured the title of the game against a period wallpaper.

Then I was browsing Channel 4 programmes and was shocked to see the similarity between my title shot and the title image of the topical Meet the Middletons. Uncanny.

My title appears after a paper radio, which plays music of the era to accompany the trailer, and fades into darkness as the first scene is revealed. Today I also watched several training videos on After Effects about animating text, and other useful tricks. I may choose to animate the text if I find an appropriate way. As for now I like the effect it gives as static text.

Music in the Public Domain

All the music we use for our showreels must be in the public domain or we have to gain specific permission to use it. Luckily for me, the main piece of music (at moment its a tough decision between a few songs) is going to be from 1930s. Hundreds of beautiful old tracks can be found on archive.org or jazz-on-line.com, both of which state they do not intend to infringe any copyright and all their tracks are available to download.

Another great source for dramatically different genres of music and music samples is Kevin Macleod's database on incompetech.com. I used a couple of his brilliant tracks for a showreel last year, and although very widely known and appreciated online already, I must say he really is amazing.

EDIT 15/4/11

I have chosen to use the song 'Love Is The Sweetest Thing' by Al Bowlly, as it is slow and melodic, and the singing starts sooner than my previous favourite 'Guilty' also a version by him. The song also has poignant references to feelings of love and uses the word 'sweet' fairly often. This is great, not because it is so cheesy, but because it goes back to my original storyline which was about a man who has lost his wife and remembers his younger years a lot better than recent ones.

Creative Commons and Kevin MacLeod

I already knew a bit about creative commons licenses from my experience with websites in the past, so I chose a license for my portfolio site and put it clearly on the front page. Related to this, I was trying to think of music sources for some accompanying music to my project showreel and remembered the talented and generous Kevin MacLeod of http://incompetech.com/ who writes small and long pieces that span almost all genres and moods, all free to use so long as he is credited.

I chose the tracks I used because piano seems appropriately timeless and sort of comical, but the clarinet is quite sombre. I was planing on using distressed music that sounded like a vinyl record being played or more upbeat music box type thing, but it all sounded a bit creepy or eerie when I tried it. I think the ones I chose fit quite nicely.

Edit: I emailed Kevin MacLeod to say thank you, and he replied really quickly with a nice message. Creative Commons is an excellent way for creative people to help each other out and share things without the fears of their work being misused.