Film Title Sequence

Title sequences are the first words that pop up on one’s screen before a film/movie starts, obviously they are made to display the movie’s title and afterwards the producers, actors, directors and all other artists and staff that have worked on the film.  Yet, one would notice that such title sequence gives an introduction to the film, not by just displaying the name but the way it’s designed. In a simple explanation horror films have grudge look typography, kids films have a colourful simple uses of typo.

13 Ghosts (1960) Movie Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smki4Vupb9Q

Film titles were being used in theatres that showed up any kind of entertainment, whereas they were originally displayed around the 1650's when the first projector was invented. Yet movie titles have been though a change where they stopped being showed with projectors yet were being displayed in movies when the silent movies era began. This was shown with title cards which were printed and then photographed and edited into the film. This gave a start to new opportunities where lettering artists were being hired and typesetters were being employed and together with the scriptwriter and directors they were creating narratives so that the audience would understand exactly what they’re following through the scenes.

Die Abentever des prinzen Achmed (1926) (The adventure of prince Achmed)

This is one of the earliest animated title sequence ‘The adventure of prince Achmed’ where such art piece was quite impressive after the artist chose to decorate the typography with an art-deco style and was inspired with Arabic letterings just to keep up with the movie’s title as graphic design in titles was restricted until 1960’s as they were using minimum decoration and typeface, until artists like Soul Bass who demonstrated his work in such a stunning creativity used in his boldness just like how he managed to create a masterpiece in his work presented in the film ‘Antonomy of a murder’ (1959) 

Anatomy of a murderer (1959) 

Today’s technology has changed the world of title sequence inside out and as the process has improved to its finest way using our computer programmes. Animation of titles which back in the day was quite expensive to get the best, today became cheaper as today’s 3D images are closely enough to the real world as technology gave the designer a total control on what he desires to do, which makes such work be as creative as one can be. Here’s a little hint on what today’s film sequence looks like.. Enjoy !

Image:
. 2015. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://cinefantastiqueonline.com/wp-content/uploads/13GHOSTS01.JPG. [Accessed 28 October 2014].

. 2015. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://i.imgur.com/t6g1L.png. [Accessed 28 October 2014].

Info:
A History of Graphic Design: Chapter 39; A History of Film Title Sequence. 2015. A History of Graphic Design: Chapter 39; A History of Film Title Sequence. [ONLINE] Available at: http://guity-novin.blogspot.com/2011/06/chapter-39-brief-history-of-title.html. [Accessed 28 October 2014].