PLANNING OPENING CREDITS - Miss Georgiou

PLANNING OPENING CREDITS

Opening credits are important in any opening sequence to a film. They introduce the characters, directors, producers etc. Opening credits can be shown in very different styles and ways, after research into opening sequences we have discussed our own ideas for our own. 

For our research we looked at an opening sequence to a film called, s7ven, which is a well known thriller film.


This film showed the purposes of film credits; shows the title, introduces characters, represents the mood & style of the film and shows the different job roles. 

From watching this opening sequence of credits I noticed a lot of things.

The first thing being the conventions. From this 2 minutes clip I noticed; flashing lights, dark scenery, low-key lighting, using black and white features which represent good v evil. The flashing lights in the credits shows unbalanced effect of instability of the antagonist, this can give ideas to the audience on what type of thriller film this is and how it is going to give them clues and intrigue them into watching the rest of the film. Although most of the conventions we see in thrillers usually take part throughout out the whole film, a lot where squeezed into one short space of time and me and my group feel this worked really well. 

The second thing me and my group looked at was order of appearance. In thriller films the credits are presented differently and may be shown to present the actors first or the title, each film is made differently. From analysing this opening sequence of credits we found that the company name was shown first, this is to show the audience who had made the film that they are watching, and give them small clues from this what type of thriller this is and on what other films have been made from this name before. The second thing to appear was the director. This was done in this case for this film because he director is very famous and showing his name before the actors often persuades the audience to watch and feel welcomed by the fact that the film making itself will be good. After this, the actors we're shown first; again the more well-known actors we're shown first, e.g. In this film it was Brad Pitt. Then the music, then the co-producers and costume producers and then the director was shown again to the audience. I found that from researching what order the credits we're shown it helped me to think what order I should use within our group opening sequence and why they should be used in that order, will our actors be famous enough to be shown first? 

The third thing I analysed when researching the opening credits from this film was the colours used. The colours shown can show what type of thriller is going to be shown. From these opening credits I found that most of the background colours and text used was black, white and dull colours. The black and white could represent death & mystery and bring suspense for the audience. For a thriller the conventional colours used are usually dark and mysterious and do not show much colour to the audience. A thriller film likes to keep the next scene a secret and things in darkness. This use of constant black and white has inspired me to discuss with my group about using this as I think it works really well.

The last thing me and my group analysed was the style of credits. The style of credits Is different in every film and shown in different ways too. The credits we're shown in this opening sequence to be handwritten, this could indicate that the antagonist is a psychopath and is mentally unstable, from first thoughts this is giving away clues to the audience and keeps the audience in suspense, keeping them wondering what he is planning and why. Other styles I noticed was that the title was in bold, meaning the director wants the title be shown and seen straight away, also a lot of flashing on screen and an diegetic electrical faint sound. This is an eerie type of noise and builds up tension quickly creating an easy relationship with the audience, keeping them intrigued. 

From this research I have gathered my own ideas and made a first draft of my own opening credits. I have taken ideas from each section of my research. The first thing I found which helped was the colours used. From my research I found that the dark intriguing colours worked well. From this I used dark colours as it introduces the film opening quite slow and keeps the audience wondering what is going to happen next. 

This is the opening picture of one of my group members; Hannah. This clearly shows the title, in bold writing. From the research I can clearly see that she has use black and white colours, although a very light background. This attracts the audiences attention quickly and the red can represent blood and danger, a small flash of this on the screen.

 

Ollie's opening credits takes the form of blood flowing down the page from corner to corner. At the end of the credits there is a puddle of blood with the name of our film above it (Obscurity). It is very conventional of the thriller genre because blood is known as being linked with death and harm. My title is going in the centre of the page to draw the attention of the audience towards it and also to make it bold and protruding. The colour of my font will be red which is very conventional of the thriller genre because red links to blood and murder. My background is black is to show death which again is conventional to the thriller genre.