Title sequences

Importance of title sequences

Saul Bass

He was an American graphic designer and filmmaker; known for his motion picture title sequences and during his career he worked alongside some of the best film makers in the world such as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick.

Bass become greater know after creating the title sequence for Otto Preminger’s “The Man with the Golden Arm” in 1955” and towards to later stages of his career he worked alongside more contemporary directors such as Martin Scorsese and created the title sequence for the well know film “Cape Fear”.

The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)

The subject to this film was a Jazz musicians struggle to get over a drugs addiction. The title sequence was created to be controversial at the time to match the films controversial subject. This subject may have been a problem for Preminger if he had not released the film prior to getting its seal of approval. He stated that the film would not encourage any viewers to use drugs in any way since they were depicted as having such negative consequences.

Later, after release it did not get the seal of approval and there was an attempt to remove it from theatres but theatre circuits such as Loews refused to ban the film.

Title sequences can be in several forms such as;

·      Text over blank screen/still image (Subtle sequence – Mood conveyed from use of colours, fonts and sound)

An example of text over blank screen would be ‘Pulp fiction’

·      Discrete (Mini film separate from the actual one but useful for setting the tone)

An example of this would be ‘James Bond’. More and more films are beginning to have stylised titles – such as ‘The girl with the dragon tattoo’.

·      Narrative (This allows the audience to identify the surrounds or be introduced to a character early on)

An example of a narrative sequence would be ‘The shining’

·      Stylised (Relies on editing and mostly uses text)

An example of a stylised sequence would be ‘Zombieland’

Whatever kind of title sequence is used, it is of paramount importance in setting the tone of the film and indicating what the audience can expect from the feature. If done effectively the audience will be left feeling excited and fully immersed for the movie to come.

Title sequences usually include;

·      Production company

·      Film creators and title of the film

·      Lead actors

·      Supporting actors

·      Technical roles (+senior)

·      Effects

·      Production and/or director

Fight Club title sequence

This title sequence is quite discrete and opens with the film companies involved; produced by 20^th Century Fox and Regency Enterprises. Due to the films rating of 18 which would be shown before the start of the film; I would suggest that it is aimed at teenagers/adults between the ages of 18 and 30 and is mainly aimed at males as the protagonist is stereotypically male and you associate thriller more with males as they are perceived to be brave, tough and superior. However, the film has an equally impressive following of females as well as male fans; potentially down to the actors starring in the film.

The sequence starts with a black screen and the sound of an old fashioned record (Classical – violin) begins to play when it is suddenly overtaken by a more contemporary piece of music consisting of a loud bass. The credits begin to role as we are shown a microscopic view of the inside of a body which could suggest we are watching the body react to a certain stimulus. From this view, we can see nerve cells which begin to light up with electrical impulses – the music is still building; sounding forceful. The impulses we can see give us a sense of something psychological; hinting at the sub-genre of the film. The fact we are giving the sense we are in someone’s body may suggest we will be following them closely in the film.

The shot continues to travel through the body; showing us various atomic parts of the body. This biological them may also suggest mental health – relating to the sub-genre of psychological. Now the first starring role is shown on screen; Brad Pitt is the first name to appear as the biggest name is shown first followed by the other actors in order of prevalence. Edward Norton is then shown, followed by Helena Bonham Carter. The font is dramatic bold with an emphasising backlight glow and after the main acting roles are shown, some of the other larger names such as Meat Loaf and Jared Leto and shown. Both of these people have large fan followings so they may attract more attention to the film and when the viewer sees their names; they may experience excitement.

After the actors, the crew credits appear in this order;

1.     Casting

2.     Costume designer

3.     Special makeup and effects supervisor

4.     Director of photography

5.     Executive producer

Each credit appears in the same way maintaining the continuity of the sequence and not one had more prevalence over the other; suggesting they all had an equal contribution to the film.

The next part of the sequence is the camera coming out of a pore from the skin; we can short hair so we could assume we are seeing an extreme close of somebody’s face. The skin is covered in droplets of sweat, suggesting the character is in a stressful/scary situation. The camera then uncovers that we came out of a pore on the forehead of the character and the hair we could see was the character’s eyebrows. This specific location tells us that we were just inside of the character’s brain, again reinforcing the idea of a psychological genre and would signify the character has a mental problem which creates an enigma because the audience does not know at this point. The lighting is dark which creates a mysterious and creepy atmosphere; that and the abnormal perspiration of the character would suggest they feel uncomfortable in the situation they are in.

The camera moves down the front of the character’s face and reveals a metal object located in their mouth; moving backwards along the corrugated object it is shown to us the object is a gun which has been lodged into the character’s mouth. The director; David Fincher, is credited last which is convention of title sequences. The camera continues to move up the gun until it reaches the end of the gun showing us its sight; the camera moves from a shallow depth of field to a deep focus. At this point we know the character is male and Edward Norton is the protagonist of the narrative. This is a very dramatic scene and creates tension which is very convention for a thriller film. There is one line of dialogue in the form of a voiceover saying, “People are always asking me if I know Tyler Durden” which creates an enigma because the audience does not know who this is but the protagonist we have identified must have a substantial worth in the plot of the film and you could suggest the film has an open narrative.

My own title sequence

My title sequence will be following text over a blank screen. I will be solely relying on the font use, colour and incidental music I use.

Some potential styles I could use are;

I think I am going to stick with white text as it contrasts nicely with a black background and it is simple and accessible to do. I will be taking inspiration from the opening of Neil Burgers ‘Limitless’ where a black screen is used as the credits appear with a gradual fading of background sound related to the scene.