Title Sequence Analysis

Today’s lesson was very interesting and it made us aware of a lot of things we don’t usually realise. We watched the title sequence of stepfather, and talked about how they lay out the title sequence and how they put it in just the right places. I didn’t realise that an opening scene needed that much planning, but it clearly does. They done the title sequence in a very clever way, because when they want us to notice something significant e.g his shaving kit, then they don’t have any text coming up. When its something normal or not very significant  e.g when his walking down the stairs or making breakfast, then they have information coming up on the screen about the music, costume designers and all that.



The Shaving Kit



Then we all got into groups an analysed the title sequence of a thriller movie ourselves. My group analysed ‘Arlington Road’!

The opening scene of Arlington road was 2 minutes and 5 seconds long. I thought it was pretty good, but the thing was, straight away you had the idea it was a thriller movie, it’s because it started of with a man covered in blood.

The beginning was suspenseful because you didn’t know what was going on, and it was like everything happened in such a rush! Practically didn’t give you anytime to breath! Pretty much everything was confusing because the images were all fading into each other and everything was foggy, which made it very mysterious.  The music was fast and upbeat which made it more suspenseful and it built up tension.

This is the title sequence timeline for Arlington Road:

0.01 – Polygram filmed entertainment presents

0.08 – Association with lakeshore entertainment

0.11 – A Gorai/Samuelson production

0.15 - & Mark Pellington Film

0. 20 – Main Characters – Jeff Bridges & Tim Robbins

0.30 – Title – Arlington Road

More Characters: Joan Cusack, Hope Davis, Robert Gossett, Mason Gamble, Spencer Treat Clark & Stanley Anderson.

0.55 – casting by Ellen Chenoweth & kathleenchopin tracy Kaplan

0.59 – co producers, jean Higgins, Richard S.Wright

1.03 – music by Angelo badalalmenti

1.07 – additional music by tom and Andy

1.12 – costume designer Jennifer Barrett

1.16 – production designer Theresse Deprez

1.18 – edited by Conrad Buff A.C.E

1.25 – direction and photography Bobby Bukowski

1.35 – Produced by Peter Samuelson Tom Gorai Marc Samuelson

1.41 – Written by Ehren Kruger

1.48 – Directed by Mark Pellington

This is supposed to be the order of the main opening film credits, most films do follow this order, but that doesn’t mean all of them do. Most films order the main film credits, on how important they think they are.