Research: The Importance Of Opening Titles

In the lesson:

At the start of the lesson, we were shown three examples of opening titles from different horror movies, which was followed by a class discussion on the types of things that we saw appear on the screen, during the opening titles. We were then given the name of a website called 'Art Of  The Title', which has hundreds of clips of opening scenes from a range of movie/television show genres. It became apparent that there is a huge contrast in the style and appearance of the opening credits, depending on the genre.

For example:

            

                            
After watching a few examples, we were set a task to look at the opening titles from 'SE7EN' and then make notes on what we saw. After this we made notes on the typography and what kind of titles appear, the visual elements (by watching without sound) and the use of sound (by listening to the clip an not watching it).

                                                           SE7EN                   

                            

Time      Title                                             

0.04   -   NEW LINE CINEMA PRESENTS

0.06   -   AN Arnold Kopelson PRODUCTION

0.10   -   A FILM BY David Fincher

0.13   -   Brad Pitt

0.18   -   Morgan Freeman 

0.24   -   SE7EN

0.30   -   Gwyneth Paltrow

0.33   -   Richard Roundtree

0.39   -   R.Lee Ermey

0.42   -   John C.McGinley

0.46   -   Julie Araskog Mark Boone Junior

0.54   -   John Cassini Reginald E.Cathey Peter Crombie

0.57   -   Hawthorn James Michael Massee Leland Orser

1.04   -   Richard Partnow Richard Schiff Parnala Tyson

1.11   -   CASTING BY Billy Hopkins Suzanne Smith Kerry Borden

1.17   -   MUSIC BY Howard Shore

1.22   -   COSTUMES DESIGNED BY Michael Kaplan

1.24   -   EDITED BY Richard Francis-Bruce

1.26   -   PRODUCTION DESIGNED BY Arthur Max

1.35   -   DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Darius Khondji

1.40   -   CO-PRODUCERS Stephen Brown Nana Greenwald Sanford Panitch

1.44   -   CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Lynn Harris Richard Saperstein

1.50   -   EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Gianni Nunnari Dan Kolsurd Anne Kopelson

1.53   -   WRITTEN BY Andrew Kevin Walker

1.59   -   PRODUCED BY Arnold Kopelson Phyllis Carlyle

2.04   -   DIRECTED BY David Fincher


It's noticeable in the opening of SE7EN that only the actors who play the main characters appear on screen (e.g. Brad Pitt) whilst the remaining cast isn't shown until the ending credits of the movie.

 TYPOGRAPHY

• The style of the font that has been used is quite rough/ messy and looks as though it has been scratched on.
• The names of the people/production companies involved in the film begin with capital letters and end in lowercase.
• Key roles such as producers, editors, directors and writers all appear in block capitals.
• The writing is small, however role titles are slightly bigger/bolder than the actual names.
• The text is white and is usually on a black background or the darkest part of the screen, which makes it stand out.
• Titles show up slightly off centre or near the corners of the screen.

VISUAL ELEMENTS

The imagery that appears during the opening titles is as follows:

• Pages turning of an old book
• Drawing/study of deformed hands collaged into a book
• razor blades
• The turning of cogs/other mechanical devices
• Writing into an old scrapbook
• Red photo
• Cutting up of camera film
• arranging photographs
• Crossing out text
• Scribbling over photograph
• Close up of dirty finger nails
• threading a needle
• threading pages of a book
• Cutting out words from an article 

A lot of the images are repeated more than once throughout the opening sequence.
All of the imagery that has been used are extreme close ups of different creepy objects that are in some way being attached to an old scrapbook/diary from the point of view of a serial killer.
Everything that appears on the screen flickers, sometimes overlaps and is in a low/dim lights, which creates an eerie atmosphere.

ELEMENTS OF SOUND

The background music for the titles is a combination of a range of non-diegetic. The sounds of motor-powered, electrical and metal objects are used to overlap the sound of drums, which creates a techno/electronic style of music. This contributes to the feeling of apprehension, felt by the viewers as they hear it. There is also something that seems to be the noise of a CD or disk being scratched, which creates a high pitched sound that could be interpreted as a scream, emphasising the feelings of fear and dread. Some sounds also sound like thunder, which is a noise usually considered to be startling and unnerving, and therefore adds to the creepy atmosphere.