The Zodiac opening title sequence takes place across a newspaper, panning and circling headlines to build intrigue without revealing the full story. It uses a dark, unsettling song and black and white visuals with red ink to highlight words and names. The only location clue is the "San Francisco Chronicle" newspaper, relevant as the killer contacted them. Credits are brief and focus on the studios, director, and top three actors, with less emphasis on stars than other films. The sequence aims to subtly tease clues about an ominous crime through the newspaper format.

1. Zodiac opening title
sequence
By Emma King-Lewis

2. Newspaper
The sequence maps a journey across a newspaper which is illustrating that a
recent crime has occurred. The camera pans over the newspaper quickly
subliminally giving clues along the way, not enough to piece a full story
together however. It creates intrigue for the audience and the suspense
builds throughout.
From start to finish, the sequence takes place on the newspaper. It highlights
different titles, crossing and circling different ones with a thick red pen. We
also see some 3D and moving images which creates a mysterious effect,
giving the audience very tiny clues on what is to come. Upon first
impressions, there are no apparent signs of what is about to happen, but with
further analysis, you see that much more is given away than originally meets
the eye.

3. Soundtrack
The soundtrack is Hurdy Gurdy Man
by Donovan and is 3:18 minutes,
however only 1.51 minutes of the song
is used in the opening title sequence
for Zodiac.
The effect that is used for the vocal is
a high reverb which loses some of the
clarity in the pronunciation of the
lyrics, in keeping with the theme of the
audience trying to guess, leaving them
with a sense of unease.
The tone of the song is also dark and
somber which is rather disconcerting
for the viewer.

4. Mise-en-Scene
The visual themes are black and white
with the use of a red thick pen, mainly
text with some moving images, red
being used to highlight or circle and
erase certain words. At times, certain
words stand out leaving the rest of the
page blurred, highlighting names for
the opening credits.
Black writing on a white background is
used to create the theme of a
traditional newspaper and the red ink
signifies blood and anger and is also
the audiences expectation of what
detectives use to highlight and circle
key words.
The blurring of certain areas and the
choice to highlight certain words is a
continuous theme which is again in
keeping with the style previously
mentioned, directing the audience to
distinct, certain areas of information
and only giving so much away.

5. Location
The beginning action of the sequence pans over the words San
Francisco Chronicle (as shown below)
Zodiac is set in San Francisco in the late 1960’s-early 1970’s
and based on the true story of a notorious serial killer who called
himself ‘The Zodiac’
The only thing that gives the location away in the opening
sequence is the ‘San Francisco Chronicle” Newspaper being
shown at the beginning of the film. This later turns out to be the
publication that the murderer sent his encrypted letters to.
The song used was also released in 1968 and is therefore in
keeping with the period.

6. Credit Sequence
The clip is 1:51 minutes and begins by crediting
Warner bros pictures and Paramount Pictures
showing their importance and relevance in this film.
They come on first at 0.29 minutes.
The next thing to be highlighted is ‘a phoenix pictures
production’ showing the company that made it at 0.35
minutes then leading on to the director, David Fincher
at 0.51.
At 0.59, the three leading actors appear together.
When compared to other films (Pulp Fiction), this is
odd as they are all shown at the same, especially
when considering the profile that they each bring.
This makes them seem small when compared to the
project as whole. That being said, they are the only
three actors to be credited at all during in this
sequence, leading to the opinion that this film has a
less focus on the actors than others previously
discussed in this blog.

7. Credit Sequence
Continued..The credits continue onto casting at
1.06 minutes which was lead by
Lara Mayfield (presented as the top
image in this slide) followed by the
DOP, Harry Savides at 1.19
minutes. Finally, the title, Zodiac at
1.39. The pan across the
newspaper comes to halt on an
encrypted cipher, eventually
crossfading with the film title.
This opening sequence is very
short in comparison to others, i.e.
Skyfall which is around 4 minutes.
This is because Skyfall has huge
production values and a large
amount of people to credit
compared to Zodiac.