Your favorite title sequence

I know what you mean, Neil, totally. Or when they incorporate or change the logo, like the Matrix.

>>Does anyone else get a little shiver up the spine when the score or the soundtrack of the film begins before the production company logo fades?<<
Like the Columbia films of Ray Harryhausen-Charles Schneer where Bernard Herrman’s (or Miklos Rozsa’s or Laurie Johnson’s) music starts as the logo fades IN.
(But I like a good studio fanfare, too …)

Neil, I totally know what you mean. I hate it when a film starts and the generic logo music plays. It immediately signals to me that the filmmaker hasn’t adequately contemplated how to effectively open his or her film. It also works with background sound effects and no score. Ironically, given your name, Heat is one of the best openings for score over the logos.

This week you’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?

Vertigo

Tetsuo The Iron Man

The title sequence begins at about 6:20 in this video. (watch)

Gaspar Noe’s Irréversible. It kind of prepares you for the rest of the film in a way.

Fight Club!!

Taxi Driver
Lolita

Bunny Lake Is Missing

I’ve always had a soft spot for the early James Bond films’ openings. Each new film was a treat to see what the beginning would deliver. WOMAN IN THE DUNES is pretty great too.

This week marks the start of our latest feature on “Single Take Titles,” beginning with the classic Touch of Evil and more recent classic The Player.

Marie Antoinette.
(yes!)

1 The fonts.
2 The fonts’ spacings.
3 The mood the music makes
4 The nudge-nudge 4th-wall-be-damned look to the audience: totally sufficient intro.

(And I have to say: I usually dislike [very strongly] italic or any slanted effect.)

I’m not sure that I can up with a favourite; I do have a few though:
Casino Royale – the way that card symbols are treated as bullets and the cartoonish figures. Cornell’s song is not bad either.
The Last of the Mohicans – the soundtrack accompanying the hunt
Alien – the letters gradually appearing over the background of space with Goldsmith’s epic and haunting score
Casino – St Matthew Passion and the image of de Niro’s character falling
L.627 – Music and headlights
L’armee des ombres – de Marsan’s sombre score; the opening with the Arc de Triumphe
Once upon a time in the West – 12 minutes; sheer bravura

Spirit of the beehive

“Gaspar Noe’s Irréversible. It kind of prepares you for the rest of the film in a way.”

^ What I was going to say

Electra Glide in Blue

I’m just getting around to seeing THE FALL, and I have to agree that it’s one of the most amazing 3 minutes of any movie I’ve ever seen. Really great (the rest of the movie is bound to fall short).

Coincidentally, another favorite title sequence, ZARDOZ, also put Beethoven’s 7th to great use.

Pulp Fiction

Eraserhead

My vote goes to Persona. By far my favorite. Seeing it in a theater was one of my favorite cinema experiences ever. I’ll never forget that.

Latest update on Art of the Title…

Part 4 of Single Take Titles features the POV ‘sensory recording’ open from Strange Days

I scanned the forum, and I don’t believe this one got mentioned. The first one that came to mind was Wayne Fitzgerald’s title sequence for David Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone. It’s kind of deceptive, and of course works much better on a big screen. As the film starts, we get a standard black screen with a nondescript white font reading “Dino DeLaurentiis presents” followed by “The Dead Zone”. Then, as the credits continue in the same white font, we get some freeze frame shots of small town New England life. But as these shots progress, small portions of the images begin to be blacked out. The first black area eerily shaped like a meat clever or machete. Basically, Fitzgerald is creating small “dead zones” over the idyllic New England landscapes, until finally the title logo from the poster is completed on the screen.

You can watch the opening sequence here… http://www.watchthetitles.com/articles/00152-The_Dead_Zone

Saturday Night Fever!

The work of Pablo Ferro – Strangelove and Bullit

The work of Pablo Ferro – Strangelove and Bullit

MEMENTO: the backwards fading Polaroid as a visual metaphor for the entire film to follow, not to mention a very creepy, subtly violent reveal that the bloody carnage being calmly examined in the photo has to have just taken place in the same space as the otherwise banal shot. Why isn’t Nolan this thoughtful anymore?

A Serious Man — opening and ending credits, both. The fonts and the cut to those fonts (slight fade in, but rapid) are perfect.

Gentlemen Broncos w/ the sci-fi titles and the “In the year 2525” song also = perfect.

Fight Club was mind blowing