Independent Research on Film Openings

Titles

The font in this clip immediately connotes the genre
is romantic comedy.

The font of a title is the thing which is most significant about genre to the audience, perhaps even more than the action which is happening on the screen. For example, the font and colour of the titles in, for example, My Best Friends Wedding, are vastly different to the ones which are seen in the opening to Scream. The handwritten, almost wedding invitation-esque font is a complete contrast to the violent font at the beginning of Scream. This is done in film openings to connote the vastly different genres of different openings to the audience - if there was a set font and colour for the titles in film openings, it would be much harder for the audience to immediately distinguish their genre from each other. However, with this said, within a certain genre the titles will always follow certain conventions, for example within the genre of horror, Nightmare on Elm Street  has a very similar colour scheme and font to the title of Scream. 

There is a huge similarity between the colours and
fonts of these two movies (Scream and NoES) - these
key conventions are what tells the audience that it
 is a horror film.

Titles are used in an innovative way in Children of Men -
they establish place and time, rather than list
the cast and crew

Additionally, there are some opening sequences in which titles are not used at all. An example of one of these sequences is Children of Men, which contains very few titles, only showing the audience production company logos, and using titles which set the scene, in terms of both place and time. A reason for not using titles could be to ensure the audience are not detracted from the action on the screen, or could even be to increase the levels of verisimilitude and to make the audience feel like they are in the scene. Another reason for not using titles in an opening could be because of the lack of big-name actors - some independent production companies choose to not include the names of the actors in the opening of a film as they fear that it may detract certain audience members when they realise they haven't heard of any of the cast. 

Differences Between Sequences

Opening sequences vary hugely from film to film, even within the same genre. For example, in Drive there is very little buildup of characterisation, with the only thing which the audience learn about the character being through the facial expressions of the driver. In contrast to this, the opening Kidulthood cuts from character to character quickly in order to show exactly what each character is like, which is how an audience would expect a drama film to run. Despite these sequences being a part of the same genre, they are wildly different from each other in just about every single way possible. This is what I would like to do with our final movie opening, make a film like Drive which completely defies what most people would expect the opening of a drama movie to have in it.

Additionally, the soundtrack of an opening sequence is perhaps as, if not more, significant to making it different from other sequences. To use the same examples I have used previously, the opening sequence of Kidulthood is set apart from just about any other film due to the fast paced grime music which can be heard behind the action - this is completely contrasted by the slow, reflective, sombre electronica of the opening to Drive, which immediately tells the audience the types of drama that each film is going to be. 

Doing this independent research into the differences between film openings has taught me about the importance of choosing the right font for the titles. It is so important that the font matches the overall feel of the opening, as otherwise it will seem very disjointed and out of place.