Title Sequence Clips

Before, when I went to the movies, I wouldn't pay much attention to the opening credits of the movie. I would be on my phone or skip the credits to get some snacks from the concession stand or use the bathroom. Now I look for all types of meanings behind credit scenes and how they can foreshadow the theme of the movie. In all the clips we watched, these examples are the ones that stood out the most. At the beginning of Scream, the title of the movie went from white to all red while there was screaming in the background. This foreshadows that the movie is most likely going to be a little gory and have a lot of violence. 

Another example is 2001: A Space Odyssey and the reason why this stood out to me the most was that for the first minute or, so the screen was completely black, and everything was silent. At first, it really confused me but then I realized that in 1968 that was their interpretation of space. An endless black void. To me, it was an interesting way to start a movie. 

In Miles Merril’s article, he talks about how Specialist titles are becoming an integral part of every film and I think a perfect example is Quentin Tarintino’s use of yellow lettering and iconic music made a brand out of Pulp Fiction. Merril also talks about how Anthony Battaglia used wide split screens and wipes of pokie machines being sled-hammered in Dirty Deeds and how the credits appear on rolling one-arm bandit slots. I think this can be related to Joe Alves's work on the movie JAWS. Alves's use of bubbly letters gives the title an innocent and fun under the sea look but with the addition of the dark red lettering, it's almost as if the innocence of nature is being disturbed by this violent beast. 

Another example is Raging Bull. Dan Perri also uses red lettering to represent the brutality of boxing but uses a black and white background to contrast it perfectly and make the film seem like a flashback. 

After watching all of these clips and reading Merill’s article, I can now watch these credit scenes and not get bored but also get a better understanding of the film that I'm going to watch in the first five minutes of the movie. These clips have made me want to keep the movie as my choice for the project because I learned how much I can do with just words and colors and I feel that I can do a pretty good job at conveying whatever theme I choose for my movie.