Title Sequence Clip Review

A film's opening scene is like the synopsis on the back of a book. If you pay close attention, it will present a general idea of what you are about to watch. 

Opening scenes include titles and credits, which I did not use to pay regular attention to when I watched a film or movie. As I mentioned before, if you pay close attention to it, it gives you background information, such as character's names or role in the film, mainly introducing you to the main character; an excellent example of is the opening scene of the film "Saturday Night Fever"; starts off with John Travolta, interpreting "Tony", walking around town with a can of paint in his hand with disco background music, which seemed very off to me because of the style of his outfit, which was a very fancy one but it made a good contrast of what he wanted to portray he was versus his actual life; it was also very noticeable of how well known Tony was around his town because of the part where the lady from the restaurant called him by his name and even knew what type of pizza he usually eats, he also tried to seduce a girl in the way as well as him wearing the color read symbolizing passion, therefore the adjectives I would use to describe him would be well known, a lady's man, confident because of the way he moved which was portrayed on the first low angle shot focusing on his walking, classy because of the way he dressed; and me as the spectator was aware of all of that within a few minutes into the film, as the purpose of this opening scene was to show us Tony's character.

Let's talk about titles now; Miles Merry tells us about the importance of titles in the article titled: "First frames: Titles in the digital realm" since "they ... set up the expectation of an audience" experiencing that myself in the opening scene from the film "Scream," featuring big red letters with screams and ambulance sirens in the background which gave me a horror movie alert, even though the introduction was short it gave me an obvious idea of what I was about to watch; another good example would be the intro of "Jaws," which did set the mood for me with the usual horror shark music as if it was lurking around you, this music gave a pretty self-explanatory idea of what was about to come since this music is as if it was these sharks' stamp plus the title underwater which helped confirm my guess of the plot. 

Going back to Miles Merry, he states in the article "First frames: Titles in the digital realm" how is a common characteristic of "... every film includes words flowing across the screen. In its simplest form, we watch a list of cast, crew, and title followed by audiovisual narrative, then more reading as credits roll." For instance, the opening scene from "Pulp Fiction" jumps right into the main characters having breakfast with the purpose to have the audience not expect what was about to come next, which would lead then to them robbing the restaurant they were in starting strong, then as they pulled their guns out. The screaming from the customers sets the mood; then, the scene is stopped as if it was a picture from a comic book. I think that was very creative from the editors. The credits rolled, and the title came up in big yellow letters and orange as if a shadow with a black background and with a musical background also of different music genres, which confused me as the audience a little of what the movie could have been about because it seemed like action. Then, tondero music comes in and then disco music, but they all sounded very adventurous. 

A film that would contradict Miles Merry's previous statement would be the opening scene from "A Space Odyssey," they did not use big letters flowing across the screen of any kind. They used a simple black screen which at first made me think something was wrong with the film; maybe the computer broke without realizing that was its purpose; then the music starts, giving an intrigued feeling to the audience of what is next or what would be the first image that appears on the screen coming from the long wait, therefore this is an excellent example of how a film did not need much of eccentric typography to capture the spectator's attention into the film.

Overall, after watching these opening scenes, selecting a film as my portfolio project seems far away from my final choice. I enjoy being the spectator, but how do I make spectators enjoy?