Essential viewing for students choosing the film opening brief: The Art of the Title. This excellent site is dedicated to displaying and examining title opening sequences.
- You must TAKE 3 EXAMPLES (as below) AND COMMENT ON HOW THE OPENING TITLE SEQUENCE FUNCTIONS. This involves close observation of choice of shots, framing, mise-en-scene, colours, font choices, music codes...anything relevant.
- USE THIS GRID OF 9 FRAMES TO PLAN YOUR OWN OPENING TITLE SEQUENCE and post the planning on your blog.
DAYS OF HEAVEN (Terrence Malick, 1978)
The film's cinematography by Morricone models itself on silent films, which often used natural light. Malick also drew inspiration from painters such as Johannes Vermeer, Edward Hopper (particularly his House by the Railroad), and Andrew Wyeth, as well as photo-reporters from the turn of the century, such as Alfred Stieglitz, Weegee (Arthur Fellig) and Jacob Riis. The street scenes capture the urban poverty of the period and explain the desperation of the film's protagonists whose future is precarious .
We have studied Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange as an example of the power of photography as reportage and its use in social change; the close-up of the infant's and young woman's faces exert a strong appeal and tug on our heart strings. The films concerns with social difference and the need for financial security are hinted at by the stills of the girl in the wedding veil and the three young women drinking tea intercut by shots of manual workers of various kinds.
The subject matter gradually moves from the urban to more of the rural, reflecting the narrative trajectory of the film.
The enchanting orchestral music echoes the use of musical accompaniment in silent film to suggest emotion.
Period colors (brown, mahogany and dark wood for the interiors) and period costumes from used fabrics and old clothes to avoid the artificial look of studio-made costumes. The colours create the illusion of period photographs, street journalism: an essential part of creating verisimilitude or 'real life' on screen. As a result, the footage is imbued with the quality of documentary truth, of scientific 'fact' which allows the viewer to engage fully with the world of the film.
Art of the Title comments: Firing a mix of critical thought and mesmerizing immersion, Dan Perri's title design for Terrence Malick's Days of Heavencombines street level photojournalism and credit-to-character inferences drawing the curious eye at will, the ears aswoon with "Carnival of the Animals - The Aquarium" by Camille Saint-Saens. You are nowhere if not here, with these people, in the Gilded Age of American history.'
'And then the last shot of the opening title sequence] subtlety shifts us from photos and into the world of the film. In a masterful move, the last shot perfectly replicates the same look of the previous images, but...it is one of the actors, Linda Manz (in a photograph taken by Edie Baskin.) It’s through her perspective that we will take this journey so it is fitting that she is the one who bridges the gap from the opening credits into the first shot of the film'. Read the analysis by Cinema Sights
SHERLOCK HOLMES (Guy Ritchie, 2010)
Watery cobblestone logos and longitudinal linotype layer, lace and lash Prologue Films’ opening and end credit work for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. The sequence creative director Danny Yount, a self-taught Emmy-winning designer/director, produced main titles for Six Feet Under and The Grid while at Digital Kitchen. He currently works at Prologue Films and has created titles for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man and RockNRolla.
SE7EN (David Fincher, 1995)
Se7en is a 1995 American thriller film, which also contains horror and neo-noir elements. The now classic opening sequence to Se7en that helped rejuvenate title design in mainstream cinema. The dvd has a long video about the making of this sequence. Title Designer: Kyle Cooper
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