{"id":8719,"date":"2020-12-10T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-10T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8719"},"modified":"2021-02-16T08:18:41","modified_gmt":"2021-02-16T13:18:41","slug":"making-the-most-of-movie-titles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8719","title":{"rendered":"Movie Titles as Mood Creators"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Years ago, because I arrived late for a showing of The Three Musketeers,<\/em> I missed the opening credits. I wanted to see them, though, so when the film ended I stayed in my seat. They were so good, I watched the film a second time. (As a result, I learned what every stage actor knows: No two audiences are alike. Not one laugh was in the same place the second time around!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Friday, we watched an entertaining Zoom program on \u201cThe Art of Film Titles,\u201d presented by genial film historian, critic, and mega-fan Max Alvarez<\/a>, sponsored by New Plaza Cinema in conjunction with New York\u2019s Museum of Arts and Design. It was a fun excursion through the ways in which film titles have evolved over the years and how effective they can be in establishing a film\u2019s mood and tone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A good example is the beautiful and compelling main title sequence from the 2010 HBO miniseries, The Pacific<\/em><\/a>, created by Imaginary Forces. Combined with the score by Hans Zimmer, you learn\u2014and feel\u2014a lot before the story even begins. Likewise, M & Co NY\u2019s titles for Silence of the Lambs<\/em><\/a> show FBI agent Clarice Starling training alone on a foggy and demanding obstacle course\u2014a metaphor for what she will face (also alone) and the grit she will need when she is assigned to interview Hannibal Lector. A gentler example is the sensuous title sequence by Elaine and Saul Bass for the 1993 film, The Age of Innocence<\/em><\/a>. She cut the sequence to the music of Charles Gounod\u2019s opera Faust<\/em>, which opens the film. Elmer Bernstein, who was slated to score the titles, said the Faust <\/em>was so perfect, \u201ckeep it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early days of film, the opening title was a simple affair\u2014one or two static slides, with a lot of facts crammed in. The slide for the 1931 Academy-Award-winning Bad Girl<\/em> above,, for example, includes not just the film title, but the director (Borzage), the studio (Fox), and the leading cast members. Nothing about it hints what\u2019s coming or how audience members should feel about it. So much data, no information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up until the 1990s, film titles and animations were hand-produced. Today, of course, they are mostly computer-generated. That doesn\u2019t automatically mean they are more complex. Alvarez cited one of the masters of film title creation, Kyle Cooper, who has produced more than 350 visual effects and main title sequences. He created his jarring, multi-layered titles for the 1995 movie Se7en<\/a> without computers, in what Alvarez dubs \u201cserial killer font,\u201d complete with real scratches on the film. You can revisit a great many film title sequences at Cooper\u2019s website, The Art of the Title<\/a>. You may even find some titles you liked better than the actual movie. I hate when that happens!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Years ago, because I arrived late for a showing of The Three Musketeers, I missed the opening credits. I wanted to see them, though, so when the film ended I stayed in my seat. They were so good, I watched … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Making the Most of Movie Titles - more than just giving you time to grope your way to a seat in a darkened theater, they get your mind in the right groove.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1288,56,63,57,64,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-film","category-marketing","category-movies","category-promotion","category-the-morgue"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2gD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8719"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8721,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8719\/revisions\/8721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}