Planning opening credits

Planning Opening Credits

Opening credits are used at the start of films for a number of reasons. It is mainly used to let the audience know the different roles that will feature in the film and also the film title. Usually the roles should appear on-screen in the order that they do in the film, also having the directors name featured near the very beginning. It lets the audience know who stars in the film. It is essential to make these credits stand out and look interesting to get the audience drawn into the film and also relate it to the genre, e.g you wouldn't have creepy mysterious writing for a comedy film. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEq-4fua3lM

An example of a well produced starting credits is from the film Se7en. The font and style of credits used is fuzzy scwigly white writing always against a black background. The fuzzy writing could show the mental state of the antagonist being twisted and that he is an evil character and also the colours set the tone of the film with white always being on a black background, showing how a sense of danger may be looming and also the white and black colours could suggest the innocent (white) being killed by the evil (black). This is effective and builds suspense as the audience do not know who may possibly be murdered. The credits of the sequence is a title with the production company name to show the audience who made the film and also to introduce the film showing them the title, followed by the main actors that they will see in the film in order of appearance. Low key lighting is used to show myterious things early on that could really to the film, such as hand prints and a character writing and the audience also feel shocked as there is a part where someone is cutting the skin on their thumb, also creating suspense as the audience want to know why this is happening and also why the previous shots are there too. Tension is built throughout but the upbeat and mysterious music from bass and a piano, keeping the audience on edge and feeling un-easy. 

For my credits, I generally want to use a black and white or dark theme to set the tone for the audience and film as our opening sequence is quite dark and covers dark themes such as murder and suicide. The director and main actors names should come up on screen as well as the name of our production to show to the audience. Below are all example of mine and my fellow group members font and colour ideas, the first being mine, second being molly's and third being Claire's. For my design, I chose the colours as white on black, typical for a thriller film and also made the font big, bolg and in capitals to stand out. Although this is effective as it relates to a thriller, it seems a bit basic and also not gripping enough, which is why our group decided not to go with this. Molly's style featured a mix of red, black and white with bold and almost depressing writing. This is clearly conventional to a thriller as dark colours are used and also the use of red could connote blood or danger and it is overall the best presented and looking out of ours so our group decided to go with this. Although Claire's idea is good with the colours and presentation, I do not agree with the font and layout as for me it looks too much like a sci-fi style font, which is why overall it was best to go with Molly's style. 

Thoughout our sequence, from the beginning until the point where we show the title of the film font, each person involved in our film will feature in the credits in various different shots. The same font will be used to maintain the atmosphere throughout and gloominess of the film, and our title will be shown behind a black background once all the credits have finished, the white font on black background showing the innocent (white) in danger of the dark and evil (black) , like those around Cameron, his mother and his girlfriend.