The History And Type's Of Film Opening

 HISTORY OF FILM OPENING

The film industry as we know it today originated, through a series of technological developments: the creation of photography, the discovery of the illusion of motion by combining individual still images, and the study of human and animal locomotion.

1650

The main function of film titles is to display the movie's title and to credit the director,
producer, various actors and other artists and technicians that have worked on a film. But more importantly the titles must prepare the viewer for the viewing of the film. The history of film titles goes back as far as vaudeville theaters, where main titles were originally produced by the magic-lantern or the first projector, which was invented in the 1650s, probably by a prominent Dutch scientist, Christiaan Huygens. By the end of the nineteenth century, magic-lanterns were quite prevalent public entertainment. The lantern projected hand-colored slides on a full-sized screen. 

Later on, he created a vast repertoire of 250 illustrated stories, songs, history lessons, and rituals as part of his publisher's effort to make great literature available on screen to the public at large. The slides, which were often animated had a narrative that were unusually written on cards that were predecessors to today's film titles.

1905

With the advent of "nickelodeon" theaters around 1905 which were showing thrillers like "The Great Train Robbery," the magic-lantern quickly disappeared and the age of silent movies began. The earliest titles, for silent films, were presented on title cards. These were cards with printed material on them that were photographed and incorporated into the film. Words and lettering played an enormous role in films of the silent era. In addition to hiring lettering artists, the prominent film studios began to employ typesetters in the production of title cards. These cards were the responsibility of the lettering artist, who collaborated with the scriptwriter and director to create narrative continuity so that audiences could follow what they were seeing. J. Stuart Blackton who directed “Humorous Phases of Funny Faces” (1906) created one of the first animated opening title.

Perhaps it was in 1927 that modern graphic design appeared for the first time in the titles of a movie. The Lodger, : A Story of the London Fog was the third film of Hitchcock -- but was his first to be seen by the public due to studio politics. C. M. Woolf, the chief of Gainsborough studio, was not impressed with the Hitchcock work, and found the movie too arty! As a result, Ivor Montagu, a Cambridge educated film editor, was commissioned by the producer Michael Balcon to correct film's short comings. Montagu reduced the intertitles from 400 to 80, and had Hitchcock reshoot segments of the climactic chase scene.  But,  more importantly, from a graphic design perspective, he contracted E. McKnight Kauffer, an American graphic designer living in London, to create the new title art, with text in Newland typeface, which was inspired  by the German Expressionism.

1930-1950

Nevertheless, the graphic designs of the 1930-50 period were very conservative and unimaginative.  Perhaps the  studio bosses, in their attempt to appease  the lowest common denominator of the movie going public taste, were fearful of introducing any bold designs.  Such a  banal tendency was prevailed still during the invention of Technicolor, and even directors such as the  Hungarian-American  Michael Curtiz,  who apparently was interested in illustrated titles for most of his films, did not strayed far from it.  The most bold  and innovative of graphic designs of this era were the After the Thin Man of 1936 in the black and white; and Fantasia of 1940, and Duel in the Sun of 1945 in color.

Jimmy the Gent, Michael Curtiz, 1934

" After the thin man", Directed by W.S. Van Dyke, 1936

Pinocchio, Ben Sharpsteen, 1940

Fantasia, James Algar, 1940

1960-2000

During the 1960s, a preference emerged among the avant garde filmmakers, such as Godard, Fellini, Antonioni, and others to emulate von Sternberg's white-on-black title lettering of Der blaue Engel. This style became a kind of prestige symbol among all those movie makers around the world who wanted to be a member of this virtual avant garde club. Examples consist of Woody Allen who used this style in almost all of his films including Annie Hall, Tsai Ming Liang, the "Second New Wave" film director of Taiwanese Cinema who used this style with Chinese script in his What Time is it Over There? in 2001 and the celebrated Persian movie maker Bahman Ghobadi in his A Time for Drunken Horses in 2000, as well as many others.

 A Bout de Souffle, Jean Luc Godard, 1960

"What Time is it Over There?", Tsai Ming  Liang, Taiwan, 2001

A TIME FOR DRUNKEN HORSES, Bahman Ghobadi, 2000

This trend was quite unfortunate, as it is clear that an avant garde movie can be enriched further by an imaginative and bold graphic design. The following titles clearly have added to the artistic aura of their respected films, and to the film viewers, in fact, they were powerful signals  of the aesthetic sensitivity of the directors. 

Of course, creating a high quality cutting-edge design is not very easy, and the task gets harder with the appearance of each innovative design. As the low hanging fruits of design are becoming picked up, the creation of a new bold design becomes more challenging, since in addition to a creative talent, it would require a greater depth of understanding of various socio-cultural issues in visual communication, and a more refined artistic skills. This is evident from very few innovative title designs that have been created over the 1990- 2000 period. But the existence of this burden cannot be regarded as a good excuse for not trying to search for creative talents that can rise to the occasion. In fact, it is interesting to note that Jean Luc Godard himself, who perhaps started the white lettering on a black background style of the 1960s, abandoned it in his 1967 Week End.

Dr. No, Terence Young, 1962

Spartacus, Stanley Kubrick, 1960

Week End , Jean Luc Godard, 1967

Types of film opening's

• Collage opening
• Montage opening
• Voice-over opening
• Music video opening
• Classic opening
• Animation opening
• POV opening
• Title overlay

COLLAGE OPENING

• A collage opening could have a force narrated opening to title sequence
• Layered pictures\ scenes
• Layering of images
• Images dissolving into each other

Frailty

MONTAGE OPENING

• Layers overlaying each other adding tension to the opening scene

se7en

VOICE OVER OPENING

• Non-linear (scenes from the middle and the end scene are often shown)
• It is plainly a person talking the audience through the scene in this case the opening scene

The perfume

MUSIC VIDEO OPENING

• When music and titles appear on screen in the opening scene.
• The credits + music are relevant to the genre of the movie

The convenant

CLASSIC OPENING

• Titles + music

Cypher

ANIMATION OPENING

• Animations\ cartoon style opening
• Funny\ childish music

Monsters INC

POINT OF VIEW OPENING

• The protagonist is talking directly to the camera
• Flashbacks might be included
• Tells a story

Kill Bill Vol 2

TITLE OVERLAY

• Includes titles in establishing shots

Panic Room