Title Research: Hostage

  The movie I researched is called Hostage. It is listed on Google as a Crime Thriller. I found this opening sequence on the "Watch the Titles" website. I counted 31 separate titles that were shown off in unique ways. Sometimes the title would blend in with the floor or a wall. Other times the title would be on a prop like a gun. Many images of the setting were prioritized in the opening sequence. It displays an industrial area on the outskirts of a big city. There appears to be a crime scene inside one of the big warehouses. Also, so images of men with weapons and firepower were shown, tying back into the crime theme.

          All of the images carry a mysterious connotation. They all make the audience curious about what transpired here. "What caused the news and police to come to this setting? Why are there a ton of men armed to the teeth?" It's all to lure the audience in and capture their attention. Crime is a staple in the thriller genre. So the crime scene-setting fits right at home in this thriller movie. Also, the firearms and goons in black are pretty in this genre, and in movies in general. However, I believe that that feature fits more into action movies than thrillers. Additionally, the camera moving around frozen subjects is seen a lot in other thriller movie openings.

          At the start of the opening, a newscaster is appeared to be in front of a crime scene. So it can be safe to assume that this incident will be very relevant to the story. Also, at the very end of the sequence, it transitions into the start of the movie. It flows into a furious man talking on the phone about, what I can assume, the crime that took place in the first location. The use of dark colors, monotone colors with blood-red highlights set the notion that this is not a kid's movie. And if that wasn't enough, the constant display of guns makes sure that this is targeted at mature audiences. 

          The whole opening sequence seems to be a render CGI model of a city and an industrial area. The people in shots seem to be models aswell. The camera is constantly moving through and around interesting shots. It would start really close to an object, then pull back and reveal a title and the associated people. The camera would also use tracking shots to reveal names and titles on walls and floors. The last shot is a filter put over a real person. The filter is then removed and it transitions into the first scene of the movie.

Title Research: Panic Room

 This was taken from the website, Art of the Title, and it is under the genre of Thriller. The logo of Columbia Pictures, which comes from Sony, fades in. This is used to give the audience the info of the movie they are watching and what film studio it comes from. The first scene of this movie seems to be an establishing shot of a large city, with the title of the company that produced it. That is one of 20 titles that are seen throughout the entire opening sequence. The first three titles are the production companies, and then it leads to the names of some actors. The list is quickly paused, with the title of the movie being shown. The next scenes present the rest of the actors in the film and the technical support who helped make the movie. In each image, it is easier to make out that this large city is actually New York City. With these aerial shots, they are taken to popular places around the city, for example, Times Square, Empire State Building, even Central Park. Title 20 was the expected "Directed by," which is always seen before the movie begins. Transitions are very abrupt because each scene is only a few seconds long.

          The design for the titles is unique, for it has a 3D effect, where the letters being angled the same as the buildings. This matches the mood of the intense music and setting portrayed. Also, the camera seems to start at an aerial shot and proceeds to lower to the ground. Before the movie actually begins, the last title scene is at a low angle, and a long shot of Central Park. I would assume that this is to tell the audience that the movie is about to begin and the characters will be introduced.

           The genre is reinforced in this opening sequence by some intense music and the titles design, looking bold and realistic. They look realistic because they cast shadows on the buildings and are reflected through the windows. The fonts are also large and high in the air, to give the audience "low-grade anxiety," according to the description. Usually, when something is high and unreachable, it symbolizes wealth and power. This creates a strange presence that haunts the city. This leaves the audience to wonder what will take place in New York. However, one would not know if the movie is a thriller because the setting is on a nice day in fall and characters are talking about something they are excited about. That is if they never watched the trailer for the movie. The proposed idea that the characters are discussing is of a building, and how it is going to be a great investment; and for movies that discuss houses, the main plot will be about the house and what it has. It might have a great feature or a haunting/powerful one.

          Strategies used to appeal to the audience is making the names of the actors appear visible and are on for a few seconds for them to acknowledge who will be in the movie. The enigma that is established from the outset is where the rest of the film will take place, which is later found out that it is in the house that contains the "panic room."

Title Research: The Reaping

Using the website www.watchthetitles.com, the opening scene of the movie The Reaping was available for viewing. While viewing the scene I counted the number of titles used in it. To my surprise, there were 26 titles! Opening scenes seem to be relatively short while watching movies, I did not expect there to be this many in what I thought was such a short amount of time. Also to my surprise, the title of the movie wasn’t the first or last title shown, it was in the middle. The beginning title was “directed by Stephen Hawkings,” and the last title was “A Stephen Hawkings Film.” During the opening sequence, images of leaves, the moon, a frog leg, hair, eyelashes, eyes, a chemical looking substance, an arm, dried-up land, and bugs which were briefly flashed. Most were dark with poor lighting and were faded in and out from black screens. The images that weren’t dark or shaded had some element with black in it. For example, the clip of the chemical substance started with a green chemical substance with drops of a black liquid being put into it. The clips of extremely close up hair and eyelashes look very similar to the insect legs. Overall, the images created a sort of eerie mood, a very thriller. Just from the intro, we can see objects that contain aspects of the movie that foreshadow what will happen. They have mysterious yet dark connotations to them. The multiple angles, shots, perspectives of each image and the speed at which they’re flashed get the viewers on edge. Even the contrast between the black screen and the images make the viewer pay more attention to each detail.

            Throughout the opening scene, the thriller genre is showed with the dark, mysterious aspects included in it. The seemingly random objects hold a deeper meaning in this film. For example, the chemicals, insects, eyes, and hair give off the idea that the movie will contain some sort of disease, outbreak, or chaos, maybe even a drought. Of course, maybe not every object is significant. However, if they’re not important than they’re included to set the mood for the movie. After all, this is only an introduction to the movie, it must give off the suspenseful feel crucial to the thriller genre. The opening scene also includes fast music and a type-writer-like font that also adds to the suspenseful mood. The early enigma of the movie is well supported by the background music because of the rapid beating behind the sound of the eerie violins. The font is blood red, smeared, and faint. Fonts like these are obviously eerie, they give an old timely, apocalyptic feel to the words. These aspects give very little to no information. This can appeal to viewers because they want to know what happens next. The suspense created throughout also makes them want to know what’s coming; what the objects they just showed mean. The flashes and music make the audience think this is going to be a film filled with rapid changes of emotion, this appeals to fans of the thriller genre for obvious reasons: thrillers are meant to cause fluctuations of emotion. Another topic, which I find interesting, are the different angles, transitions, and editing techniques the creators of this opening scene used. For instance, they used different angles of the same object to put new titles on the same image but at a different angle. They also transitioned almost everything with fade-in and fade-outs, they matched the music playing in the background that heightens the suspense. The titles are put in different places each time, they cause you to look at a different part of the screen. Even the movement of eyes this causes make the viewers pay more attention to the images in the background. Overall, the opening scene in this film doesn’t provide a lot of contexts, but it does set the correct mood for the film and what it will be like.

Title Research: Split

  I found the title sequence for this film, Split, on the website Art of the Title. The genre for this film is under the Thriller category. The film seems to have already briefly started. Before the titles appear, a clip plays of a man wearing a mask and glasses, holding a spray bottle reaches his arm towards the camera inside of a car. In total, there were 22 titles, with the first one being the name of the production company, Universal Studios. The titles are presented on a simple black background with white text. When transitioning to a new title, a 4x6 grid of the next title appears flashing, which then all go black and reveal the next title. The first three all include the production companies, and the creator of the film. The following title is simply the name of the movie: Split. In between some of the titles are little clips of a hallway of some sort, in which the camera slowly pans down revealing a woman being transported on a cart through it. The rest of the titles display some of the actors' names and the production team (e.g. Music Producer, Executive Producer, etc.). The final title is simply the text saying "Written and Directed by M. Night Shyamalan."

   The images shown throughout the title sequence carry the connotation that the movie is mysterious and ominous. The woman being transported through the hallways unconsciously on a cart is not something that typically is a daily occurrence for most. This gives the audience a sense that something bad is about to happen, and encourages them to continue watching. The text used in the title sequence are connected when on top of each other. For example, the letter "Y and L" would be connected through the bottom of the Y and top of the L. This reinforces the name and genre of the movie "Split" which is ironic, since the letters in the titles aren't split. The music is also very eerie, as it has no melody, beat, or lyrics. Simply just background noise, mixed with humming and rumbling. This also reinforces the genre as the music can give the audience a thrilling experience. 

   The film establishes an enigma from the beginning by cutting in the middle of the scene of the man with the mask. The man is clearly up to no good, and by cutting right as the audience is about to see what occurs, it builds mystery and hype to continue watching. As well as the woman being transported in the hallways. The viewers have no clue on what has happened and what might happen later. All of these strategies are also used to ensure that the film appeals to its viewers who enjoy Thriller films. Technology has been used effectively by the way that the title sequence is presented. Since it is simply text, the camera plays no part in it. They must use computer software to generate the grids flashing for the transitions, and the connected text, as well as adding the bits and pieces of clips during the sequence. When the camera is being used, the camera angles are from a low angle looking upward. Which with every new clip after each title, it slowly pans downward, which then reaches and reveals the woman on the cart.

Title Research: Watch the Titles

We are using this website to research different opening sequences for our own film. This website contains several distinct title sequences for a range of genre options. The website also has title sequences for TV shows, video games, and even student projects. This is a great website to research the conventions of openings for movies.
          Our main focus is on the thriller movie opening segments. A recurring characteristic of each clip is that it is ended with "Directed By." We learned that, even though movies share a similar genre, their openings can be drastically unique. Also, we noticed that although the movies have different genres, they have similar titles in the opening scene. We learned that actors usually do not have titles associated with their name. In some cases, the actors are famous enough that audiences watch the movie for them, so they should already know who they are. In other cases, it can be assumed that the names popping up are actors. Other titles, such as "edited by", "music by", and "casting by" are showed with the corresponding staff member. Another common element used in opening sequences are cutting to black to show the titles of each of the people that worked on the movie. The film would show a movie scene of something going and then in between each shot, they would flash the titles. Slow-motion is also used quite frequently.

Title Research: Art of the Title

This website shows the use of titles in movies, and even gives examples of what some may look like. Art of the Title is a very presentable site and we are on here to explore the different designs of titles, especially from every genre. Each group member has to choose a movie's opening scene under our genre, to conduct research. This is for us to know the conventions of how the titles are for thriller films. What was seen is that the website has a very long list of all the designers and studios that make the titles for movies. This would be useful if we are researching how the individual designs their own titles, probably if they use the same font to establish it is them. There is also a lengthy page of many movies. These are clips of the beginning of the featured films. There are not only movies but TV shows too, even ones from Netflix. Following the clip, under it, there is a description of the movie and titles used and information on who directed, what studio it was in, and the styles. After watching some of the clips, the website does not always offer the opening title sequence, but only the end credits. Also, some of the descriptions give interviews that are held with the producers and directors. What was learned is that the beginning sequence offers the names of actors, and usually the most known/famous one is seen first. The director is the title scene that is always put before the movie begins. This is to remind the audience who was the person to create the film that they are watching.