2. Task 3: Titling
• Reservoir dogs:
• Basic title fonts and colors
• Slow motion shot of men in suits walking
• Black background and yellow writing of cast
• Some titles over scene of men and some over
black background
3. Opening
• Begins with men in suits, sets the scene for
the audience in order to grab their attention.
This makes them follow the story line from the
beginning so they fully understand the film.
4. Titles of characters
As the men are walking in slow motion it reveals the narrative
and gives a sense of their characters. For example the titling
“and Tim Roth” gives him a sense of power and audacity over
the other characters. “Chris Penn” also stands out as he is
wearing bright colored clothes and the rest wear suits. This gives
the audience a sense that he is different to the other characters.
5. Titling
• The characters names coming over the characters excites the
audience as if forces them to predict the future of the
characters they know. This is because the audience will use
evidence from films they have seen from before will the
actors they know to guess how they will act in this film.
6. Titles
• This shot fades in to a black background and this remains
black for around 2 seconds and then it says “a film by Quentin
Tarantino”. The black background is used so that the audience
are concentrating as they are anticipating for something to
come up. Then they discover it was a film by Quentin
Tarantino and therefore they know the full will be of high
quality as he has made a number of successful films.
7. Characters
• The next clip is of the men walking in suits in slow motion
with the name of the actors over this. This is done to reveal
the amount of well known actors that will play a key part in
the film. Therefore the audience will recognize them and be
more attracted to the film as they familiar characters.
8. • The title of the film “Reservoir Dogs” comes up the screen as
the men walk away from the camera connoting that they are
going somewhere to keep the audience curious and
interested. As the titles come back over a black background
the audience are again anticipating for the next scene to
come as the less relevant staff are being shown on the titles.
9. Godfather
• The titling is shown for a long number of time as it forces the
audience to remember it making it more important and
noticeable
.The name of the writer of the book was also shown above the
title, as his name will be noticeable, they will be more attracted
to pay attention to the film. This is because they will expect the
film to be of high quality as it is a well known write writing it.
10. • The author’s name is shown next to the film
as the film was released after the book, so
people will recognise this person and
therefore pay interest to the film as they will
be attracted by this familiar name.
11. • Over the name of the film “Godfather” there are strings over the name
“father”, which looks like someone controlling the puppet as someone’s
hands are holding it. This connotes that someone is going to be in control
and it makes the word “father” stand out as the strings are over this word.
This implies a father may be a significant figure in the film and it gives the
audience wider knowledge on the film before it begins.
• This makes the audience make predictions and ask questions to keep them
interested in the film and the fact that they are making predictions forces
them to pay attention as they want to discover if they were correct.
12. The departed
• The opening scene of the departed is very plain and simple
• It consists of the colours black and white which are the most basic colours
with a simple and classic font
• The effect this has, is that it it doesn’t reveal much to the audience. This is
a different approach to the other films as the titling is more subtle.
• Therefore this also another technique which forces the audience to pay
attention as they have no knowledge about the film from the titling so
they must pay interest in order to get the outline of the film.
13. • It also has the titling “Boston some years ago”.
This is also very subtle and not specific as it
doesn’t give an exact time of how long ago it
was. Therefore it is informal and reveals that
the characters may be very casual and
careless.
