Understanding Opening Sequences

For our brief we need to understand the purpose and the importance of opening titles. A majority of people believe that opening titles play a insignificant role in a film or in television and would usually ignore them. However we believe that opening titles are a major part in a film because they prepare a viewer or an audience for what is to come and tells them if there are any major stars involved to intrigue the viewers.

Opening titles have almost become an art form in film because of the way film makers are being massively creative with editing techniques. Most recent film trailers or even snippets of opening sequences to new films such as ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ gain millions of views on Youtube.

What Makes An Opening Sequence Successful?

The first opening titles that occurred in films only featured the name of the film and the director. This is because they wanted it to be a quick, but effective process. However this was changed so the entire cast and crew would also get credit for making a film to get recognition. Although this changed opening sequenced remained looking simple. Now opening titles have changed massively so they aren’t just aesthetically pleasing to the audience. They have become more complex and far more creative to capture the viewers attention and to involve them as well by making the experience very visual. Other film designers believe that what makes opening titles successful is excitement and thought provoking which involves viewers by giving them a good introduction to the film.

Titles Superimposed on a Blank Screen

Earlier films only had the option of using very simple white font over a black background because they only had black and white not colour. However, although we have a much wider colour choice now and editing techniques, the white font over a black background is still used because it’s not expensive or time consuming. It can also give a film an authentic or classic look for the film.

Titles Accompanied with Still Images

The first films to feature images during title sequences used still images, for example in ‘The Last Tango in Paris’ featured two paintings to represent the characters in the film. This film was also accompanied with a single score of music to create a mood for the audience.

Earlier films would have had hand drawn borders around the credits. This was they very start of making credits more visually appealing and credits becoming a lot longer.

Titles Accompanied by a Series of Moving Images

One of the first films to use moving images in a title sequence was ‘The Wizard of Oz’ released in 1939, which featured moving images of clouds during the opening titles. Since then opening sequences have evolved very quickly becoming massively visual. For example films such as the James Bond series created their own unique and iconic style for their opening sequences.

The have also become quite artistic and thought provoking, for instance the opening sequence for ‘Forrest Gump’ released in 1994 had a camera tracking a white feather floating in the air which eventually took the audience to the first location/set of the film.

Recent Examples of Opening Sequences

Recent movies such as the Spider-Man series, James Bond and Sin City have very visual special effects for their opening titles which have become very recognizable. Furthermore, their opening sequences rely on captivating audiences by making them excited. Also the soundtracks are also massively important for creating the atmosphere/mood for the audience. For example a large budget is used for the James Bond opening titles to create the atmosphere and to maintain the iconic opening sequences style. They also use well know music stars to compose the opening titles, for example Paul Mcartney (Live and Let Die), Tina Turner’s (GoldenEye) and Shirley Bassey’s (Goldfinger, Diamonds are Forever and Moonraker)