Title Sequence Ideas

As a group we have decided that our opening credits will appear in a sequence of their own, this will take place entirely in the dark room. We want to incorporate our titles in real life - having them appear physically in the fictitious world of our film instead of adding them during post-production, we hope to use letters cut out of magazines and placed in various locations in the dark room.

Saul Bass was an American graphic designer and award winning filmmaker, he designed many title sequences during his career, some of which are thought to be among the best in the history of film. Here is a useful link to a website that contains stills from all of the films he has worked on:

http://annyas.com/screenshots/saul-bass-title-sequences/

Two of his sequences particularly stand out to me as they follow the same idea of physically including the titles. In 'West Side Story', the titles appear written on a wall whilst in 'That's Entertainment, Part II' they appear in various ways, such as in books, written in sand or on an old cash register.





“For the average audience, the credits tell them there’s only three minutes left to eat popcorn. I take this ‘dead’ period and try to do more than simply get rid of names that filmgoers aren’t interested in.
I aim to set up the audience for what’s coming; make them expectant.”

I really like this quote from Saul Bass as it emphasises the importance of a title sequence. They should be exciting for the audience and serve as a 'taster' for the rest of the film, in terms of style and content. It is for this reason that we chose to use magazine cuttings, we think that they add an element of mystery that is in keeping with our character's personality, they are also more interesting to look at instead of plain text in the bottom corner of a frame like in many films.

Another film that served as inspiration was 'Napoleon Dynamite', below are stills from the title sequence:

I think that this is a very interesting and clever way to incorporate titles. The bright colours and trivial subject matter help to create a humorous atmosphere, although this is in contrast to the mood we wish to create, it still helped us to generate ideas.