For this week’s blog posting, I looked at the title sequences from a couple films, featured on the website www.artofthetitle.com. The first film title sequence I watched was The Usual Suspects, a crime drama directed by Bryan Singer. Having seen the movie multiple times, I knew what the story entailed; however, the title sequence reveals very little about the film on a literal level. I don’t want to give away the main story, so I’ll try to keep my observations separate from storyline specifics. The sequence is very simple, but very effective. It consists of one single shot with the camera tracking to the left the entire shot. The subject of the shot is light shimmering off of the water in the night. The music provides a sense of intrigue, which is thoroughly indicative of the following storyline. As previously mentioned, the sequence reveals very little about the story literally; however, there are multiple metaphorical implications. First, the track shot from left to right is very similar to a row of criminals lining up for mug shots, which is essentially what the entire film is about. Also, the vagueness of the title sequence serves as a very similar theme to the remainder of the film. The sequence is simple, clean but highly effective and encapsulates the idea of offering very little about the story.
The second title sequence I watched was from the Ruben Fleischer directed Zombieland. In contrast to the previous sequence, it serves to set the stage for the remainder of the film. Throughout the sequence, rock music is used to set the stage for intense action. The subject of the sequence is the protagonist doing a voiceover discussing his rules for surviving a zombie apocalypse. The sequence integrates some kinetic type that reacts to the action throughout. As the protagonist describes the rules for surviving the zombies, we see the action play out with a series of unfortunate subjects. The creator chose to show these encounters with extreme violence and gore to set the tone for the remainder of the film. The strong violence and gore plays off of the comedic elements, creating a nice balance. Lastly, the sequence features extreme slow motion shots, which adds to the comedic elements. Both title sequences served their purposes well, but I preferred the in your face elements of Zombieland.