Originally, the titles at the start of films were called 'title art'. Since the 1930's, titles have come on dramatically, improving in many ways. This includes animation. Many of today's film titles are animated. The introduction of colour television also made room for improvement, allowing filmmakers to make more interesting titles by adding colour and contrast to them along with animations.
More recently, film titles have included actor names and production names as well as the filmmaker and film names. Usually, the director is first followed by lead stars of the film, like the main character or most famous actor.Deconstruction of The Mummy
To begin with the music is made by an orchestra. It's the type of music that is typically used in films of high adventure like Indiana Jones and The Mummy because it's very strong, effective and gives the film a sense of vastness, as if the world is a big place to explore. The music also portrays to the audience the idea of the victory of a fantasy battle (not like 300 for example, more like Narnia). At 00:45 the music becomes higher pitched as the plane appears, symbolic to how the aeroplane is soaring high in the sky.
The film was set in China, 1946, which is demonstrated through the Chinese theme of silhouette figures in the title sequence and the colours used; black, blood red, white and gold. This affects the audience by letting them know where it's set while the strong, noble colours bring in the aspect of traditions and the idea of battles and victory; they're bold and don't suggest a loss, tying in with the fact Chinese people are proud.
The film title is not mentioned at all throughout the opening titles; however elements of the film is threaded through in the images; from the expeditions to the battle scenes, allowing the audience to get an idea of what the films about without knowing the name.
At the beginning and end of the film the name `Rob Cohen` appears: the one at the start sayings "Directed by Rob Cohen" and the one at the end stating "A Rob Cohen Film". This portrays that he is the most important person on the production team because he is the first and last name scene; he even comes before Brendan Fraser and Jet Li. This makes the audience, who enjoyed the film, want to watch more of Rob Cohen's films and perhaps even the rest of The Mummy Trilogy if the hadn't watched it before.
The film title is not mentioned at all throughout the opening titles; however elements of the film is threaded through in the images; from the expeditions to the battle scenes, allowing the audience to get an idea of what the films about without knowing the name.
At the beginning and end of the film the name `Rob Cohen` appears: the one at the start sayings "Directed by Rob Cohen" and the one at the end stating "A Rob Cohen Film". This portrays that he is the most important person on the production team because he is the first and last name scene; he even comes before Brendan Fraser and Jet Li. This makes the audience, who enjoyed the film, want to watch more of Rob Cohen's films and perhaps even the rest of The Mummy Trilogy if the hadn't watched it before.
Deconstruction of Cirque Du Freak
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of organising text in a particular order to make the language visible. The arrangement of type involves different typefaces, the font (style), point size (size of type), line length (alignments of how long lines are), leading (line spacing), tracking (adjusting the spaces between groups of letters) and kerning (changing the space between pairs of letters).
'A Lesson on Typography'
Film Opening Conventions Research
With this research we hoped to achieve a reliable source of how the film title sequence is made. Using this research, my group and I came up with the order of how the people appearing in the opening credits and their roles appear.
- Production Company Logos/Idents: In order of how well known they are and/or how important they are. Bigger names, bigger business!.
- Film Title: Generally, the film title is at or near the very start of the film, however some break this pattern and put it minutes into the film, like The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, where the title isn't for around ten minutes. Or even sometimes, at the end.
- Members of the Cast and the Production Team: Generally and in most films, the first names are the most well known people in the cast, which is again biggest names, biggest business. The more famous and revered actors/actresses in the film, the more likely it is to be recognised. The same thing kind of goes for the production names, but the ones that are mentioned most frequently are the Director, Producer, Executive Producers etc...
Opening Titles structure:
After our discussion on the order of the opening credits using the above information, my group got together and we discussed the order in which our opening credits may resemble:
- Production Companies and their Idents
- Film Title
- Cast...
- Casting by...
- Music by...
- Visual Effects by...
- Edited by...
- Producer...
- Executive Producer(s)...
- Co-Producers...
- Costume Design by...
- Screenplay by...
- Written by...
This is what we will base our opening credits on. Obviously we don't have a crew of 20+, and we don't have a person specifically for casting either, so some of these roles will not be listed in our film. We have chosen to do opening credits rather than an opening sequence, as we imagine it to be as effective if not more so, and it may save us valuable time for other aspects of the film.
