A method by which cinematic films or TV programs present their title, key production and cast members, or both, utilizing conceptual visuals and sound.Opening credits or titles are shown at the beginning and end. The creativeness of film titles has advanced massively, they were always usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static picture, or sometimes superimposed over a piece of action. However, a new trend has started to be explored and introduced, where opening credits are built into a separate sequence of their own, this is called title sequence.
Opening credits since the early 1980s, if present at all, identify the major actors and crew, while the closing credits list an extensive cast and production crew. The idea of credits and titles were to set a mood and to capture the audience before the film began.
The example below is the work of Saul Bass in 1950s and 60s. His modern title sequence for the films of Alfred Hitchcock were key in setting the style and mood of the film even before the action began, and contributed to Hitchcock's "House style" that was a key element in his approach to marketing.
Superimposed on Blank screen
The above film titles are very animated but the characteristics and repetitive use for action film titles, may mislead the viewer into thinking that the sequence is an action film. For this set of titles, there is little opportunity to build in our own characteristics and symbolism around our production company name.
Superimposed over Action
The above titles are used as a reminder of previous series or events in the film, for our purposes this style of film titles would require extra footage whilst also the film title is too long, we will need the film titles to last around 10-20 seconds at the maximum. The film titles are also very action film style and would take some serious time for planning and then creation, in which we have not got either the time or the ability to create such film titles, as the titles use a mix of animation, real footage and digital photo editing.
Own title sequence
The above film titles are an animated sequence for an animated film, in our production team, none of us have got the ability to create such a film title due to the lack of time and animation software. However, this film titles do not match the genre of the film.
Once again, the title sequence contains mostly animated footage, in which we are unable to re-create. The timing of the sequence is also another large issue, as the sequence is over 4 minutes long and our task is only a 5 minute short. The actual titles would be easy to create with the 'flying past' titles for the actors and production teams names. This sort of titles also does not match the genre, however, parts could be used in context of our production. eg. using religious items instead of planets.
Saul Bass
The film titles could be re-created due to large usage of text and camera movement rather than full animation. Every title or name is set as one large picture, the creator has then used camera movement to show different names or titles. However, these titles are once again too long and would needed to be shortened. There is also very little or no way of incorporating our own theme of religion into the titles other than the text font.
