1. Understanding Opening
Sequences
For our brief we need to understand the purpose and
the importance of opening titles. A majority of people
believe that opening titles play a insignificant role in a
film or in television and would usually ignore them.
However we believe that opening titles are a major part
in a film because they prepare a viewer or an audience
for what is to come and tells them if there are any major
stars involved to intrigue the viewers.
Opening titles have almost become an art form in film
because of the way film makers are being massively
creative with editing techniques. Most recent film trailers
or even snippets of opening sequences to new films
such as ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ gain millions of views
on Youtube.

2. What Makes An Opening
Sequence Successful?
The first opening titles that occurred in films only
featured the name of the film and the director. This is
because they wanted it to be a quick, but effective
process. However this was changed so the entire cast
and crew would also get credit for making a film to get
recognition. Although this changed opening sequenced
remained looking simple. Now opening titles have
changed massively so they aren’t just aesthetically
pleasing to the audience. They have become more
complex and far more creative to capture the viewers
attention and to involve them as well by making the
experience very visual. Other film designers believe that
what makes opening titles successful is excitement and
thought provoking which involves viewers by giving them
a good introduction to the film.

3. Titles Superimposed on a Blank
Screen
Earlier films only had the option of using very simple
white font over a black background because they only
had black and white not colour. However, although we
have a much wider colour choice now and editing
techniques, the white font over a black background is
still used because it’s not expensive or time consuming.
It can also give a film an authentic or classic look for the
film.

4. Titles Accompanied with Still Images
 The first films to feature images during title sequences
used still images, for example in ‘The Last Tango in
Paris’ featured two paintings to represent the characters
in the film. This film was also accompanied with a single
score of music to create a mood for the audience.
Earlier films would have had hand drawn borders
around the credits. This was they very start of making
credits more visually appealing and credits becoming a
lot longer.

5. Titles Accompanied by a Series of Moving
Images
One of the first films to use moving images in a title
sequence was ‘The Wizard of Oz’ released in
1939, which featured moving images of clouds during
the opening titles. Since then opening sequences have
evolved very quickly becoming massively visual. For
example films such as the James Bond series created
their own unique and iconic style for their opening
sequences.
The have also become quite artistic and thought
provoking, for instance the opening sequence for
‘Forrest Gump’ released in 1994 had a camera tracking
a white feather floating in the air which eventually took
the audience to the first location/set of the film.

6. Recent Examples of Opening Sequences
Recent movies such as the Spider-Man series, James
Bond and Sin City have very visual special effects for
their opening titles which have become very
recognizable. Furthermore, their opening sequences rely
on captivating audiences by making them excited. Also
the soundtracks are also massively important for
creating the atmosphere/mood for the audience. For
example a large budget is used for the James Bond
opening titles to create the atmosphere and to maintain
the iconic opening sequences style. They also use well
know music stars to compose the opening titles, for
example Paul Mcartney (Live and Let Die), Tina Turner’s
(GoldenEye) and Shirley Bassey’s (Goldfinger,
Diamonds are Forever and Moonraker)