The Opening Credits

The opening credits of a film are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production.  They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There may or may not be accompanying music. To gain more knowledge and understanding on what credits really are and how they work, I have recently been doing some research. I have been looking at a number of films, so that I could analyse various techniques which have been included. I decided to do research on the films 'Se7en' and 'Vertigo', so that i could compare there opening credits.

I discovered that most films include the following:

• NAME OF THE PRODUCTION COMPANY

• STARRING

• FILM'S TITLE

• CASTING 

• MUSIC COMPOSED BY 

• PRODUCTION DESIGNER

• EDITED BY

• DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

• PRODUCER

• FROM A PLAY/BOOK BY 

• WRITTEN BY

• DIRECTOR 

The film Se7en  is a modern film which is a lot more lengthy and faster than the old film Vertigo. The opening sequence of Se7en included credits on the production, director, actors, title, cast, editor composer and many more. The sequence was playing at a constant pace that allowed the viewer to read everything on screen in time. The writing was clear and easy to understand because it was placed on a darker screen. I found it very strange that the title of the film did not appear first on screen. The production company, director and various important actors appeared before the title. The actors were shown before the titles to suggest that they are the most important ones, or the ones with the marquee names that cost them a lot of money to hire. After the title 'Se7en' came on the screen two actors appeared on the same screen, then it increased to three and so on. This was done to portray the less important characters as they were not on screen for long and had to share their time. Before analysing this film and how credits work, I was not aware that the costume designer and composer would get mentioned. It is very difficult to spot, but in the opening sequence the Director has been mentioned twice, this may be to stress that they done the most work or are very important. When creating my opening sequence for my film I am going to use this technique or repeating important people more than once to make it clear the most important people. Repeating names allows the audience to remember as it stays in their minds.

BELOW IS MY TIMELINE FOR THE FILM SE7EN:

Similarly, the film Vertigo also repeats the Director to show great importance. This film includes most of the credits used in Se7en but in different ways. Vertigo is a hold fashioned film so many of the techniques and credits used may not be modern. Vertigo used very bright colour to make it clear to the audience, however the music being played in the background may be somewhat disturbing to some people. This film also included the most important characters to open the sequence to attract attention. If the audience notices a particular marquee name in the opening of a film, they are most likely going to watch it. Unlike Se7en, Vertigo includes a lot more writing on screen. This may be a problem because usually at the beginning of a film the audience is not going to want to read a lot. In my film, when doing the credit I will learn from this mistake and put the least amount of writing i can on screen, so it does not bore my audience. 

BELOW IS MY TIMELINE FOR THE FILM VERTIGO: