TITLE SEQUENCES CAN BE FUN TOO
This week’s menu of clips to watch was an eye-opener to me with regard to the meaning, beauty and importance of Title Sequences or credits of a movie. I realized that these in themselves can be beautiful works of art, and can be fun too when watching movies. Of course not all the title sequences – but those which have been crafted meticulously like many of those presented in “Art of the Title” and “Forget the Film, Watch theTitles!“.
Among those which I watched on the two proposed sites the following caught my attention:
Rango: The title sequence of Rango runs for a little less than 3 minutes, but it is quite interesting to watch. The color, the illustrative style, and the “cartoonesque” animation, all give it a very cute and peculiar style. The music enhances it by giving it partly western and partly James Bond type mood. The graphic style too gives it a very oldish kind of feeling. Over all everything blends well to make the sequence quite appealing.
Blue Horse: I like the title sequence of Blue Horse too. It’s slow, but the blue color and the slow drawing with crayon along with the music gives the viewer an impression of something serious, probably tragic, going to happen. The hand slipping and crayon falling off the hand again portents some evil thing that is going to take place. One gets the impression that the story is built around a child (due to the childish drawing), but the hand evidently is that of an adult male. We learn later that the title sequence is drawn from just one scene of the film where a child and its drawing is involved. Quite a simple sequence, but visually and thematically effective.
The Fearless Vampire Killers : The Fearless Vampire Killers is quite fascinating for the following reasons:
- the color which suggests something very eerie
- the transformation of a renowned Logo into a cartoon character
- the animation of the cloudy sky which ultimately metamorphoses into the surface of the moon with a zoom out
- the interesting play with drops of blood which highly contrasts with the blue background
- the metamorphosis of the drops of blood into a nocturnal creature (bat-vampire)
- Over all the effect is simultaneously very eerie and comic.
Cleo From 5 to 7
Th title sequence for Varda’s masterpiece “Cleo from 5 to 7” is very intriguing. The sequence itself is a prologue to the film, and every bit of the sequence is crucial to the story which has started evolving. The shots are very well crafted. But according to me there in lies the weakness of the scene as a title sequence: the viewer (I for instance) becomes so engrossed in the visuals and the narration, the symbolism and animation, that he/she forgets to give attention to the graphic titles themselves! If it were not for this, I would say that the sequence is indeed very absorbing.
In a big contrast we have ALIEN 3 which also has the title sequence in the form of a prologue – but there is nothing to distract the viewer from reading everyone of the credits. The titles are well juxtaposed into the suspenseful cuts which dramatically narrate the enfolding of the story.
Le Malheurs d’Alfred: This was supposed to be a comedy. The music was very much suitable in that regard. The animation of the graphics tend to be quite comic now and then. The impression of clumsiness speaks for the main Character of the movie, I presume. A thematic connection to the story is made by the graphics in the form of building blocks, since the profession of the main character is that of an architect. The title sequence is funny to a certain extent. But on the whole the sequence does not grab your attention for a long time.
Having viewed the enriching collection of Title Sequences now onwards I will start giving a little more attention to Credits and title sequences when I watch movies – and I understand that I will need to take proper care of the titles if I happen to produce Video or movies.