Planning Opening Credits - Miss Georgiou

Planning Opening Credits

The purpose of the opening credits is to let the audience know the different roles that will feature in the film and the film title. Usually the roles will appear in the order that they appear in the film. The opening credits will also tell the audience which production company has produced the film, and will introduce the mood of the film. For example, the thriller genre will feel eerie and tense.

As a group we analysed the opening credits to the film Se7en. We discussed the colours that were used during the sequence, and we identified that the main colour for the text was white, whereas the background was black. These two colours represent the relationship between the antagonist and the victim. We could also see that there were flashes of red throughout the credits which connote the idea of death, blood and danger; key elements of the thriller genre. The style that the credits were written in appeared messy, almost as if they were handwritten, which suggests that the antagonist is a mentally unstable character. There were different conventions of the thriller genre that were used during the credits of Se7en, including Low Key Lighting which is used to create suspense and an eerie atmosphere. There was also an enigma present throughout the entire sequence as the audience could only see the hand of who they presumed was the antagonist, and so they did not know who he is for sure. They could also see the faces of the victims, therefore they are left wondering what those people have done wrong. Finally, we identified the different iconography that the antagonist was using during the opening credits that implied to the audience that he was planning the death of his victims. Lastly, we were asked to consider the order of which the text appeared during the sequence. The first name that appeared on the screen was New Line Cinema, the production company of the film. This was followed by the name of the director, David Fincher, and then Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, the main actors that the audience were going to see in the film.

We practised creating the credits for our groups opening sequence, and this was my final design. The title will fade into the screen at the beginning of the sequence and then out of the screen at the end, which I believe will appear mysterious and chilling. This is conentional to the thriller genre as the antagonist is usually hidden and lurking in the backgroup, which creates an eerie atmosphere and makes the audience feel unerved. The font text that I have used is bold and stands out against the black background. The line of red that runs through the middle of the white text represents that blood and death of the victims. This follows the conventions of a thriller as the death of the victim is typically brutal and bloody.

Molly used red and white font in order to make the title of the thriller film stand out again the black backgroup, this was similar to the colours that I used in my own idea. The white represents the victims within the film, and the red represents their blood and the danger that they are going to find themseleves in during the film. Whereas the colour black represents the dark side of the antagonist and how much power he has over the other characters; the black background is larger than the text. The text that Molly used for the title is bold and moves around the screen in a way that is similar to the title of our film. Overall, I think that her idea contains many of the conventions that typical thriller film credits have, and that it represents the status and characteristics that the characters in our sequence have.

After seeing the idea that Molly designed, I think there are many similarities that our design ideas have. I also think that as a group we will work on Molly's idea as the font stands out and fills up the entire screen. We want the audience to take notice of the title and to see how the word "disturbia" represents the behaviour of the antagonist. Also, the way the colour of the title changes from red to white can be used to represent the way our antagonist changes from being innocent to a killer, which the audience will see within the first few frames of our opening sequence.

During our opening sequence, the first credit that will appear will be the name of our antaognist, as he is the first character to appear on the screen and the most important in our sequence. The same goes for the two other characters that are featured in our sequence, when they are first seen on the screen their name will accompany them. We think this will make it easier for the audience to identify which actor is portraying which character. The title of our film "disturbia" will appear after the death of the antagonists mother, along with the song "tiptoe round the tulips". We decided to place the title here as it will give the audience time to process the first death and also it will hopefully leave them wanting to know what is going to happen next. The name of the director will appear at the end of the seuqence, followed by the names of the makeup and costume artists, which will show the audience the importance of the people involved in making our opening sequence.