Title Sequences of Movies

Angelina Ding
Sep 23, 2022
3 min read

Updated: Oct 5, 2022

What is a title sequence and what is the purpose?

Title sequence is where the title and authorship information of the movie is provided before the actual film starts. It also acts as a prelude to the movie where it sets the tone and lures the audience in to watch the film. To expand in detail, the title sequence is like a book cover, it helps people decide wether they want to look at the movie or not because from the few seconds of the sequence, people could sense the genre and pacing of the movie. Not only the visuals of the sequence matter, the music used is also vital in attracting audience’s attention.

Aspects to consider in creating a successful title sequence:

• Typography

• Color palette

• Textures

• Lighting

• Camera/movement style

• Editing

• Imagery

• Styles/techniques

Saul Bass – why is his work so influential ?

“Saul Bass was an American Graphic Designer and Oscar-winning filmmaker, best known for his design of motion-picture title sequences, film posters, and corporate logos”——www.moma.org

“My initial thought about what a title can do was to set mood, and the prime underlying core of the film’s story, to express the story in some metaphorical way. I saw the title as a way of conditioning the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would already have an emotional resonance with it”

Here are two examples of title sequences at that time:

Here are two examples of Saul Bass’s work:

He believes that each title sequence is an opportunity to help deliver the story of the film to the audience, it’s not just a sequence. His work is revolutionary to the other artists during that period because he was the first one that made the title sequence move. His minimalistic work——consisted by simple geometric shapes and symbols——is deceptive, because they actually convey and carry a message of the film. The effectiveness and memorability of his title sequence (a new type of kinetic typography) influenced many people.

How is a title sequence different from an opening?

Title Sequence

Title sequence is the sequence of words that shows the name and other details about the film before any shot of the film itself is revealed to the audience.

Opening is starting the film with the shots of the storyline first and then adding the name of the film and other details into the shots.

Analysis of ‘Seven’

The title sequence of the film ‘Se7en’ is create by Kyle Cooper. It used a large amount of close-up shots, accompanied with horror music, stylish text, and filter to hint the criminal’s sick mental state in the film. There is no story or order of how the shots are arranged. Some techniques in editing used include quick cuts, glitch in text, elapse of two shots, fade in and fade out, pure red filter, increased contrast of light and shadow, etc. The idea of the opening is hinting that someone is doing a book collage on human body. He/she is cutting, writing, and pasting things in a very old and yellowish book, as if making some sort of plan. All the closeups have something that makes people feel uncomfortable and the way that the camera is angled gives a feeling of disorder. The main colors appearing in the opening is black, white, and red. The monotonous of black and white foregrounds the red on the screen. As red symbolize violence, alert, and death, the audience could have preparation and foresight on what will come up in the film. At last, the opening ends up with quick changing shots as if it was rewinding to start the film.

Here are some screenshots of the title sequence…