Title Sequence Clip Review

 

               Over the past week in class, we studied a variety of openings of well-known films. Out of the many films that we watched the top five that stood out to me the most are Pulp Fiction, Dazed and Confused, Saturday Night Fever, Trainspotting, and Scream. A few of these movies were set in the same general time period, but their content shows different perspectives about different issues going on at the time, which shows how depending on where you were raised your life and struggles can be very different.  

For example, the films Saturday Night Fever and Dazed and Confused were both set in stage in the late 70’s. From the introduction to these movies alone, it is apparent that these movies are showing two totally different perspectives from the time, especially due to one taking place in New York and the other taking place in Texas. A similarity between the openings of these two films is the way they use music to direct the energy of the scene. 

The film Pulp Fiction’s opening hinted at many stylistic choices that would continue throughout the movie. For example, in the middle of the opening credits, the song completely changed. The song was still just as upbeat and exciting, but it was an entirely different genre. This along with how the female actor's mood switched from happy to threatening in a second, hints to the fact that throughout the movie things will often jump back and forth without warning. 

The movie Trainspotting’s opening did a very clear job of showing the mood and tone of the movie. The opening is very fun and quirky. It also does something that was not done in any of the other films that we studied this week; it introduced its characters on screen. The opening would pause on the character doing something quirky that showed their specific personalities and showed their names. While doing this the movie showed how the main group of characters are more of the social outcast types and introduced the main characters view on the world. 

Lastly, the movie Scream had my favorite opening out of all of the clips we watched in class this week. Not only is Scream such an iconic movie, it is also the blueprint for many modern-day films. The opening shows that this movie will clearly be a stereotypical movie, based on killers chasing young girls. The title was foreshadowing the killing that was to come in the opening because it featured screaming and flashing red and blue lights, which symbolized flashing police sirens. This creative title reminded me of the article First Frames: Titles in a Digital Realm by Miles Merril. This article had a section discussing how with advancements in technology, opening sequences have also been able to advance. Another part of Scream’s opening that I enjoyed was the popcorn. In the first few seconds, the girl puts the popcorn on the stove. As the opening gets more and more intense the popcorn also grows in size. After the girl is killed the popcorn had exploded, showing how that intense part had ended. 

Studying these openings made me think about the effect these small parts of a film really have on the film as a whole. I was also reminded of this in the previously mentioned article, “Film titles are very important because they set up the expectation of an audience. They are usually the first thing you see. Good titles design stems from an idea rather than flashy or experimental graphics per se. An opening titles sequence generally engages with the big themes of the film and looks at overarching themes and metaphors of the film.” (Merril). This shows that even though it can only be a few seconds to a few minutes, the opening a film is the first thing the viewer sees, which readies them and their expectations of the rest of the movie that is about to come. 

Studying these openings has made me consider doing a film for the final project instead of a magazine. It made me think about how creative I could be and how many little details I could hide. Originally, I had planned to just do the magazine for the final because my specialty is photography. While the idea of doing a film opening was persuasive, I believe I have still decided to do a magazine because that area is my strong suit, so that is what I should work with.