RESEARCH: Blog Post 9 -Categories of Film Openings

Film openings Analysis

We have looked at different film openings and i am going to discuss the main reasons for the use of different title sequences.

Titles on a blank screen

• The first film opening we had watched was Psycho. It had its titles on a black background, this gave the audience no sense of the film's genre. The reasons for this could be because the producers had a low budget, or the film is antiquated.The film opening is also very dull and off-putting, it has no sense of the genre of the film, the story or the main characters.
• Titles were mainly big, bold and centred to create a focus to the films' titles. The producer has also left a contrast effect in colour of the titles and background. The white is a target and will appear lighter than it does in isolation due to the dark colour in the background.

Titles on still images

• The second Film title sequence we have examined was the titles on still images. The film opening we have watched was from Seven. In the opening title sequence original titles were hand drawn to give off a sense of the film's genre to the audience and gives the audience a hint of the story. 
• The images show us that the story is associated with investigations and detective work, these include books, pens, paper and files. Not showing the characters face creates suspense as the audience don't know who is creating this file or their location. 
• The text also appears in white which makes it stick out against the dark background.
• Textwise, the layout of titles on images and on a blank screen vary. In this film opening the titles appear and fade on the the sides of the screen and not in the middle. 
• -Editing to the beat

Titles over moving images

• The titles are often there to introduce the storylines of the film.
• They often favour to contribute sound (e.g. music, editing to the beat) but with no dialogue.
• The moving image is usually a metaphor or serves to offer a narrative thread. For example in Rear Window the metaphor would be the bars of the window, it shows how the person living there is trapped.

Titles using animation or motion

• By watching Casino Royale, we have noticed that titles using animation or motion are integrated into the images.
• Using animations for titles requires lots of digital technology. 
• The story theme is always related to graphics shown, graphics also tells us the overview and genre of the story.  E.g. In Casino Royale we can see guns, this tells the audience that there is some type of action involved.
• We also know that the main film title is always at the start after the main characters are introduced.

Favourite type of title sequence

Stylised title sequence