Pre Production - Research into Titles Sequence Part I

Titles sequences play a very important role in any production. They are not only one of the first things the audience sees when watching a film or a tv show, but it contains some elements that can establish what is about to come next. When you think of title sequences, the right thing to associate them with is the audience, which is the primary reason for any studio to create one. Taking this into account, I decided to look into what are the type of things audience expects to see in a title sequence:

- The Film Title
- Appropriate music or sound
- Conceptual cinematography
- Names of main cast and crew
- The main characters to be introduced
- To have clarified genre

This information is based on the research from Eleanor Monk on her presentation of "Different types of Title sequences and their conventions." https://prezi.com/o4tpkbnwzdo5/title-sequence-research/

NOT all of these elements are REQUIRED to be included, but they do help setting the mood and gives away some information to the audience that can be analyzed at their own judgement. 

Based on this same research the other thing I looked into was the different types of Title sequences that could be created. Each one of them serves a purpose, but more importantly is that it is filmed with a special and different purpose. There are mainly three different types of them the first one being:

Narrative

It is made with a series of connected events or a story line, which somehow relates to the films and helps draw in the audience. One of example of this if the movie "The Shining" by Stanley Kubrick. The opening titles for it, is all based on an aerial camera panning and following a car across a dee
p valley with nothing but a mysterious music and a very wide panorama. From the book Kubrick by Michel Ciment, he commented on that title sequence that: 

"It was important to establish an ominous mood during Jack’s first drive up to the hotel — the vast isolation and eerie splendour of high mountains, and the narrow, winding roads which would become impassable after heavy snow. In fact, the roads we filmed for the title sequence are closed throughout the winter and only negotiable by tracked vehicles."

Discrete/Informational

A discrete title sequence is one that gives a little bit of information, but not enough at the same time.

It serves a discrete clue, so that the audience can figure out what the show is about for themselves, one of the biggest and current example is The Walking Dead. Season 1 and 2 title sequence was created by the Graphic Designer Kyle Cooper. Kyle has created over 150 opening credits for both TV and Films, including Se7en, Spider-Man, The Mummy, The Walking Dead, Scream Queens, American Horror Story and many others. During an interview he gave for the SciFiNow magazine, he was asked about the design approach for horror credits, taking into account that the majority of film and shows he has worked on, are somehow related with a a bit of horror. His answer was:

"My philosophy, I think, is the same as for any opening credits. Try to have the idea be born out of the content and try to communicate something, try to involve the audience emotionally. If it’s a horror sequence, you try to get an emotional response whether it’s disturbing, suspenseful, mysterious or dramatic, these things kind of set the tone. I don’t know that I set out to do horror credits, but I always liked horror movies – I’m just more interested in those kind of themes. It seems sometimes the more mainstream or larger budget features, they’re trying to appeal to a broader audience – like comedies and romantic comedies – people get away with things that are less sophisticated in the typography from a design standpoint."

http://www.scifinow.co.uk/interviews/se7en-to-american-horror-story-kyle-cooper-on-horror-opening-credits/

Heavy Stylized Editing

As the name says it, this type is very much based on a lot of editing, including many VFX and computer animation. This particular style, captivates the attention of the audience very well, because it can pretty much create anything and make them visualize everything that is going on screen. Another very recent example of this style is Netflix original Marvel's Daredevil. The creative director of it, Patrick Clair, works for Elastic Production Studio, which have also created the Game of Thrones   Title Sequence. Patrick Clair along with his crew Illustrator/Designer YI-JEN LIU, CG Lead ANDREW ROMATZ and Fluids Lead MIGUEL A. SALEK, spoke in an interview to the Art of Title and among everything the most relevant bit of it was when he was asked about the elements he was most happy with. I think this kind of answers are really important because it show the passion of the creation and potentially some of the most relevant elements for the creation of it.

What elements of this sequence are you most happy with?

Patrick: Probably the colours. I love working in restricted colour spaces, and the red was awesome to explore and push to the limits.

Patrick: We did try a footage-based approach, hinting at a shadowy and ominous New York, full of reconstruction and a brooding danger — this was intriguing, but not as visually compelling. Ultimately, the city objects were rolled into the final execution and this really merged with the liquid concept. The liquid concept was always my favorite

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/marvels-daredevil/

Apart from all the types, I decided to look into series of favorite title sequences which is James Bond. The majority of their opening credits were created by Daniel Kleinman, a British director and title sequence designer. I looked into his most recent creation, Skyfall, because I wanted to cover one important area that I know the James Bond films deliver, which is the sync of the audio with title sequence itself. I found an interview as well from the Art of Title asking him about how he used Adele's song for the creation for it and I found very interesting the level secrecy that some of this things have and also how listening to a bit of the song can help set the mood and visualize more the ideas. This was the question:

Was the song by Adele already written when you started? How did the union of audio and visual happen?

I hadn’t heard the track when I first started having ideas. I went to Pinewood sometime after the film had commenced shooting and Sam had a rough demo of the track he played for me. The demo helped me lock down some of the images and sync them occasionally and loosely to the lyrics, but it took considerable time to get a final mix and even longer to get an edit of the track. It was cut down from five minutes to just below four minutes. The track was a tightly kept secret and I didn’t share it with anyone — not even my own team — so they were in the dark as to the tone, mood, and speed of it until quite late in the process. The final marriage of finished track and edit to the visuals happened only a couple of weeks before the sequence had to be finished.

Once my title sequence is done for the show, I will write a post including not only the final work, but also how this research has helped me in the creation of it.