The document discusses film title sequences and how they establish genre and narrative expectations for the audience. It analyzes openings from Dawn of the Dead, Barbarella, and Once Upon a Time in the West. These sequences use music, visuals, and sounds rather than dialogue to build tension and imply genre. For example, Dawn of the Dead uses ominous music and zombie sounds to signal a horror genre, while Barbarella uses upbeat music and a floating woman to signal a non-horror sci-fi genre. The openings establish main characters and set up narrative mysteries or "enigma codes" for the audience to unravel during the film.

1. Exploring Title Sequences in Film Openings.
I think these seven film openings are effective as in all of the film openings
they include barely any vocals from the characters. The majority of the opening
is music in the background, thedifferent types of music in the background
helps the audience understand the genre. For example in dawn of the dead
they include slow, sharp music which shows theaudience that the genre is
most likely a horror genre. The use of having no vocals in the openings also
allow for more tension to be built throughoutthe title sequence.
In the title sequences different films use different fonts and transitions for
the credits, for example dawn of the dead uses the colour red. This connotes
blood and shows theaudience that it is a horror genre. They also have
scratches through them, this again shows a horror genreto the audience as it
happens quickly whilst zombies are seen in the background. In Barbarella they
use a white colour and the words startfloating up as if they are in space. This
matches the costume of the woman who is also floating in mid-air in a space
suit. This tells the audience that the movie won’tbe a genre such as a horror or
action as there are no fastpaced camera shots. The music is also slow and calm
which also shows thatit will not be a fast paced action movie.
The title Dawn of the dead reflects upon the genre of the movie as it suggests
to the audience that the dead will come back to civilisation and take over. This
suggests to the audience that the genre will be a zombie horror typemovie,
this is backed up fromthe red scratches through the credits and the fast,
ominous music in the background. Thepictures also show a lot of zombies
killing humans which is also a genre signifier. All of these genre signifiers also
suggestto the audience that the narrativewill include zombies and including a
binary opposition of live vs death. The movie Barbarella uses an upbeat tempo
in the background which shows thatthe movie isn’t a horror/thriller, the useof
a space suit costumeopening up whilsta woman is floating in mid-air suggest
for a sort of sci-fi feel to the audience.

2. In the movie opening of once upon a time in The West they used barely any
talking fromthe characters involved. They used a bunch of different noises and
sounds in order to create tension and atmospherefor the audience, one of
these sounds is the useof silence which is key in this opening. Itcreates
enigma codes for the audience which makes them think about who the
characters are and what they are doing throughoutthe opening. Sounds such
as flies buzzing and rocking chairs screeching create different feelings for the
audience, it also helps them understand the characters moreas they get to see
them withoutthem having to talk to each other. One of the characters then
caught a fly in a gun which emphasised the sound of the buzzing mixed with
the sound of water dropping on another characters hat. In Dawn of the dead
they used scary and ominous music to create tension for the audience. The
music mixed with different sounds of zombies murmuring and screeching are
genre signifiers of a horror genreto the audience. Italso creates a scary
atmospherefor the audience.
If I had to sum up each movie in one sentence I would pick these:
Barbarella- futuristic spacemission.
Dawn of thedead- the day the zombies attacked.
Alien series- the day the aliens attacked.
Dirty Harry- don’tswimin a pool on the roof alone as you may be shotand die.
The Player- (the player on the website didn’t work and I couldn’t find this on
YouTube…)
Onceupon a time in the west- the old westwas boring and full of elaborate
sounds.
Mean streets- sleeping can bring back memories?
In these differentfilm openings there are multiple enigma codes, for example
in aliens and dawn of the dead the audience wantto know how the creatures
came to Earth, where they came fromand whatthey want. In Barbarella the
audience want to know what the woman is doing floating in mid-air in a space
suit whilsttaking it off. In dirty harry the enigma code would be that the
audience want to know who the girl and guy is and why he shother whilst

3. swimming. Also what shedid to deservethat or if the man did it out of blood
lust.
In Barbarella the main character is the woman floating in mid-air, this is
evident as she is the only person in the opening. To develop this character they
use multiple different camera shots all focused on her and eventually reveals
her face to the audience. This is different in once upon a time in the west
wherethere are multiple people in the opening however the main characters
are easily spotted to the audience as it focuses on the main characters such as
the man who catches the fly in the gun and the one who drinks fromhis own
hat. To develop the characters in the opening they make them seem as though
they won’ttake anything fromanyonewho does something that they don’t
like. This is shown by one of the characters throwing the nice older man into
the closet. In dawn of the dead the main characters aren’t that easily
identifiable to the audience as the main focus point in the title sequence is
showing the zombies and letting the audience know the genre and narrativein
the movie.