Dextre Opening Sequence Activity

Summarise the conventions of title sequences that were most important to this task

The role of a film opening is to show people what happens behind as well as in front of the camera. This is why opening sequences all tend to have a set number of titles. The titles in the sequence should look as though they are meant to be there, like the image would not be complete without them. Because of this, they must match the style of the opening and add some meaning to the title sequence, without appearing intrusive or annoying to the viewer. In some openings it is possible for the actors to interact with the titles, or for the titles to seem to make the sequence continue. Regardless of how they are used , they should always improve the sequence.

How did your group plan to edit the title sequence? (consider timings, industry requirements etc)

As a group we understood that the sequence would need a large number of titles, so we decided to have roughly one title per shot, in some cases two. Unfortunately, due to the time constraints we were put under, not much planning was achieved other than a quick discussion about location, font and colour. We knew the general gist of what effect we were trying to create with the titles, so decided to get stuck in with the task and start creating our titles.

Explain the creative decisions made by your group

One of our first choices was to make all of the  titles white, because it matches with near anything and we felt would draw the viewers attention most. In addition to this, Gavin noticed that there are a lot of shots in the sequence that contrast white and red, for example when there is a shot of the inside of a white sink as droplets of blood fall into it.The main credit itself was red on white, so to make our credits stand out we chose to make them all white. The font we used was quite formal, we decided to use this font because of what images are shown in the sequence. The sequence depicts a mans morning routine, so to match this we used a formal font, not to mention the fact that we were extremely squeezed for time and had to make a quick decision about the details. But because we felt it looked good in the sequence, we decided to go ahead with it. At the start we had so many great ideas and was being fairly ambitious with our choices, making our first title follow the camera.Unfortunately, we realised that if we wanted to complete a good number of titles, we would need to majorly simplify our choices. We placed the titles in parts of the screen that were near the action but not blocking it, drawing the viewer's eye to the action.

How does your re-edit compare to the original?

There is no doubt in my mind that the original title sequence is better than our version, I feel like it conveys the mood of the show in the original. Our version starts off alright, but eventually ends up as a bit of practice for our group to see all of the different effects that were possible on the software we were using.

If I were to improve the sequence, first of all I would have finished all of the titles off. Furthermore, I would have liked to spend much more time thinking about how I can get the titles to interact with the sequence more and portray a more serious, routined mood as is shown in the footage.