R&P Post 2: Researching Title Sequences

We also had to research tilting sequences as we need to include titles in our project. Here is what I found out:

Tips for creating a good titling sequence:

• Keep the font small- unless you are intentionally going for a certain look, such as block text that covers almost the whole screen, there is no reason for your titles to take up most of the screen. The audience should be able to concentrate on the movie itself without the titles being an annoyance for them. 

Here is an example of a film which uses small but tasteful font for their opening titling sequence:

• Choose a tasteful font- do not use a font that is over-stylised or textured, the effect of this can often make your titles look very cheap. Clean and simplistic fonts are usually the best to go with as they look neat and give the film an overall tidiness. 
• Use framing guides- when editing you can select an option which enables you to turn on faring guides and place your titles to the right position on the screen. When framing guides aren't used, when one title fades to another they will be slightly apart from one another.

Looking at specific title sequences:

An example of a very intense and interesting title sequence is The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011). It has 29 titles during its opening sequence with small and relatively simplistic font. However, if you look closely at the titles as the film plays, you can see that some parts of the writing grows slightly. For example, when the title of Daniel Craig's name shows up on screen, it first looks like this:

And then the font grows to this:

Although this technique is extremely subtle and simplistic, it is quite unusual and gives the opening sequence of the film a different and intriguing feel. In relation to our own group project, this would be an interesting technique to use with our titles to make them subtly more interesting.

You can watch the opening sequence of this film here:

Another example of a good title sequence is from Catch Me If You Can (2002). This film has 34 titles included in its title sequence. The title sequence from this film is completely animated, making it rather different from other title sequences as during the majority of films, the titles are shown alongside footage from the actual film. However, in Catch Me If You Can the audience is really drawn into the titles through the way that they change throughout the sequence. In similarity to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, the titles in Catch Me If You Can also grow on the screen, for example:

This:

goes to this:

This font stands out to the audience in spite of the fact that it is very plain and simple, but the reason why it stands out is due to the way in which the lines of the font spread up and down the screen. What this does is draw the audience into the titles more which makes them take notice of them. This is what we need to do when creating our film: we need to ensure that the audience is still watching the film but also taking note of the titles at the same time in order to make our project more successful.

You can watch the title sequence of Catch Me If You Can here:

Furthermore, one last example of a successful title sequence is Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). This title sequence has a much more Hollywood feel to it than the other two examples I have looked at and it that sense it is quite a lot more generic. Despite this it is still an interesting example of a title sequence and it draws the audience into the film and grabs their attention. Unlike the other examples, this film uses footage from the actual film to show their titles. For example, during the beginning of the sequence the titles follow a fuse that one of the characters have just lit, which is very effective in drawing the audience into the film.

Moreover, another important thing that our group will need to consider when creating our titles is the order of which they will appear in. All titles in films generally go from showing the most important people to the least important people so we will need to decide which titles are the most important and which are the least. In Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (which has 27 titles) the titles of the most important people in the film are shown in the centre of the screen to draw the audience into it more. For example:

Tom Cruise is one of the main actors in this film which is made clear to the audience as his name is shown early on in the title sequence. On the other hand, for less important people the titles are shown more towards the side of the screen, for example:

From this screenshot you can see how this title is more towards the left side of the screen, indicating to the audience that these people are not very important in this film. Another thing which indicates this is the footage that is playing whilst this title is showing. This particular part of the sequence does not show very exciting or interesting footage as it just appears to be a blueprint of some buildings, unlike the other example of Tom Cruise. When his name came up on screen a fuse had been lit and the title was essentially following the fire of this fuse. This was exciting and thrilling for the audience as they did not know what was about to come next. With the above example, it consists of rather basic footage which, again, just tells the audience that these people are not very important in this film. What this tells us is that when our group are creating our own title sequence, when it comes to the more important names we want to grab the audience's attention to show that these people are important, but with other less important titles we do not have to ensure that the audience is focused on this specific part of the film.

You can watch the title sequence of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol here:

After researching general examples of successful title sequences, I also looked at the title sequences of some films from our genre of a drama/sports film. The point of this research was to gain an insight into how these types of films display their titles so we can further improve our own film project and make it more successful. Here is what I learnt:

Raging Bull (1980), an American biographical sports film about boxing, has a rather slow-moving yet dramatic opening sequence in which a boxer is practising his boxing technique in slow-motion whilst the titles show on-screen. The font used for the titles is simple and small but it really suits the scene, demonstrating how simplistic fonts are effective. However, when the actual title of the film- Raging Bull- shows on screen, it shows in a much larger font, in big red capital letters. This makes the title of the film itself really stand out to the audience and the rest of the titles then blend in with the rest of the film. Here is the actual opening sequence for this film:

Overall Raging Bull is a good example for our group of how to create a good title sequence due to the way in which it effectively uses its titles to draw the audience into the film itself. 

Another good example of a titling sequence within the sports/drama film genre is Southpaw. The opening sequence of this movie begins with a black screen which shows some titles whilst music builds up in the background. Then it cuts to the scene of the boxers' hands being wrapped up whilst the music continues to play loudly. The font that is used for the titles in this film is more complex and it looks more interesting than some of the more simplistic fonts used in other movies, such as Raging Bull. The effect of using a more complex font is that it gives the film a slight novelty feel, for example:

This font gives the opening sequence of the film quite a grand and slightly dramatic feel, hinting to the audience that this film is going to be rather dramatic itself with the action that later takes place. When our group is creating our own title sequence this would be an interesting thing to do with our titles in order to hint to the audience that more action is about to come, keeping them on the edge of their seats.

You can watch the full opening scene of Southpaw here:

From this research what I have concluded is that for our certain film genre of a sports/drama film is that it is best to keep titles small and simple but when we show the actual title of our film, we should make it stand out for the audience to keep them interested in our film. When we come to edit our film and do the titles, we will ensure that we use this type of font in order to make our film more successful.

I hope this post interested you was helpful as well, see you again soon!