| September 14, 2007
It always astonishes me when I watch a film and absolutely no attention has been paid to the opening title sequence. In that token I am equally pleased by sequences that artfully introduce the movie title and cast in creative ways.
The Directors Guild of America stipulates that as a member you must provide opening credits for a certain portion of the cast and crew for your movies. Some directors have side-stepped the whole process and gone straight to the movie, leaving the credits until the end, thus ending their membership in this essentially powerless organization. While this isn't necessarily a poetic solution to the problem, it is certainly an effective one.
Most directors choose to meet this challenge head on, and create opening title sequences that set the tone for the movie, some more successful than others. A few of my favorite movie titling in recent years include:
Catch Me if You Can
Fight Club
The Royal Tenanbaums
Panic Room
Napoleon Dynamite
But we must give credit where credit is due. Modern move intro titling wouldn't be half as interesting today if not for the pioneering efforts of one man: Saul Bass. I know his praises are sung all too often, but watching these newer movies one can't help but find the occasional similarity between the titling of today and the groundbreaking work of the past (see the Panic Room intro then watch Saul Bass' intro to North by Northwest).
A personal favorite, if I may make a suggestion, is Bunny Lake is Missing.
The link I have included does not have the sequences as video, but if you click on the images they'll advance in order so you can see how they originally appeared.
Link: Not Coming to a Theater Near You
Tags: motion, movie titling, saul bass, typography
Creative Dialogue
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Karen Horton
on September 25, 2007 “This is a phenomenal gallery. Thanks! I actually like that the title sequences are presented in stills on the site, and that you need to click to proceed to the next frame. ” |
