Project 2
The film I've settled on is The Trial Of The Chicago 7. A historical legal drama surrounding the events leading up to, and involving the trial of 7 men, who were the leaders of various political organizations, who were blamed for the riots that occurred within the peaceful protests they set up at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968.
WEEK 1 — concepts
The first idea I thought of was some sort of homage to the protest signs, My plan was to use some sort of handwritten looking type to mimic the handmade signs and have the credits look like they were marching towards the screen.
My second idea was to play off the concept of legal pads and lawyers notes in court, as for the content in the ‘filled out legal pad’ it would quote/facts from the trial with the actor's names interspersed and high-lighted so they stood out.
My third idea and the one I feel most confident about is the idea to write it in the style of court reporting stenographer notes. Writing in stenography (a type of shorthand) helps court reporters keep up with the fast-paced dialogue in a courtroom without having to type out entire words.
WORKSHEET
WEEK 1 — motion test
WEEK 2— process
Since this film has so many “main” characters rather than just one that I could focus on I decided to portray each credit with related underlying concepts. It's the type of title sequence that when you watch the film again you will catch onto the little easter eggs that I’m trying to portray.
WEEK 2— motion test
WEEK 3— process
From this critique, I knew I needed to finish the credits, find more appropriate audio, add transitions that moved the eye around the screen, clean up my movements, work on proper pacing, and add all the finishing bits like the end card and whatnot.
WEEK 3— motion test
WEEK 4— process
The whole film revolves around movement as a concept starting with the fact that the 7 defendants were indicted for violating the Rap Brown law, which had been tagged onto the Civil Rights Bill earlier that year by conservative senators. The law made it illegal to cross state lines in order to riot or to conspire to use interstate commerce to incite rioting, therefore their moving across state lines is technically what got them in trouble.
FINAL VIDEO
As for the meaning behind all of my choices, they were mostly based on the personalities of the characters. The writer and director's credit was based on the original opening credit of the film.
As for the transitions I tried to mimic the movement I saw in the film, whether it’s marching, protesting, running, generally milling about, being taken in and out of court when they were detained or just the cameras pans and quick cuts the film always feels like its moving. Hayden was one of the more professional protesters, he was head of the students for a democratic society organization (SDS) and was a member of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), he was focused on making sure the trial went smoothly, respected the judge and was the topic of one of the pivotal moments in the trial so I took part of the court document and redacted everything but his name. Dellinger was the oldest member of the 7 at 43, he was well known as a pacifist and was the head of the MOBE, he was known to set up many of the previous peaceful and successful Anti-Vietnam war protests, he is introduced while putting his protest signs into his car and I felt like that really highlighted him as a character.
Hoffman was the only member of the 7 to actually be put on the stand and questioned and when important and quick-paced questioning was taking place the lawyer checked that the court reporter was able to keep up with writing stenography. The court reporters' notes were often referred back to as an important piece of the trial so it seemed appropriate to have part of his testimony written in steno as his credit.
Bobby Seale's credit was done in Futura condensed, which was the title typeface used in The Black Panther newspaper. The movement within his credit is supposed to represent how he was dragged around in the film, he was only in Chicago for 4 hours to give a speech, he was gone before the riots started but he was thrown in with the others to make the group “look scarier”. He flew home to New York after the speech only to immediately be arrested and brought back to Chicago, he was the only one of the 9 to be in police custody for the entirety of the trial so he was dragged in and out of jail and the court by marshals and when arguing with the judge about his lawyer not being present he was dragged out of the room, beaten and gagged whenever he was in the courtroom so he couldn’t “interrupt” every day until he was severed from the trial.
Rennie Davis was attacked by officers while trying to protect a child and was brutally clubbed in the head, this moment was the catalyst that incited the riot that caused the group to get arrested. I have a fainting problem and so I tried to recreate the fading in and out of consciousness that I deal with, which he also would have been dealing with due to the severe head injury.
Jerry Rubin is introduced to the film while walking into the court building, which at the time was surrounded by protesters. Many were chanting the slogan that basically became the anthem of the Chicago riots “the whole world is watching”. The chant was referring to the fact that the event was being heavily filmed and the protesters had hoped that by alerting the police that everyone could see what they were doing that it would reduce the unnecessary violence. Many times through the protests Jerry was the one starting the chant and actively trying to calm down the police when things would start getting out of hand.
Throughout the entirety of the movie, whenever there is a new scene in the courtroom a small trial counter appears on the screen, this is necessary because the trial went on for 151 days. This was an important detail from the movie that I wanted to incorporate somehow. For the final credit, the main title sequence of the film I decided to apply that concept. I started the counter at day 151 and counted down to day 1, replacing the number itself with the actual name of the film, indicating that the trial was about to begin. The final transition of the sequence is the title being covered over in white, this was an attempt to represent the fact that throughout the trial the defendants were fighting an omnipresent and invisible justice system that was against them from the beginning. This trial was widely recognized as a political stunt put together by the new attorney general in hopes of silencing the protesters and showing them who the boss was, as well as making a point to the previous government's attorney general who he perceived as slighting him by resigning only half an hour before his appointment. This was just after the Reagan administration took over from Johnson’s presidency, the democratic parties attorney general, who was in charge at the time of the protests, deemed the riots to be the polices fault but when the Republicans took over the new attorney general found an obscure law to charge them with.
Since there is so much variation with typefaces I was worried that the credits would feel disjointed or look like they didn't belong but the advice I got was to make the transitions kind of relate to one another and to keep some sort of consistent element so I focused on red as the spot colour because it's very prominent in the film and generally just seemed appropriate for the film in general. As for the audio, I chose a suspenseful and dramatic backtrack that created the right amount of tension and planted the seed that things were not going to go smoothly, and I layered that with the muffled old audio from short news clips from the Chicago riot that I stumbled upon on a royalty-free site which was too perfect. it creates more of an ambient sound but lends historical accuracy to the title sequence.
