Art of the title

Casino Royale

Daniel Craig’s first Bond film, Casino Royal (2006) features an opening sequence which begins with the end of a fight in a bathroom – Bond is picking up a gun, when his enemy, having pretended to drown, turns with a start and aims a gun at bond. However Bond turns and shoots first, with the camera tracking backwards down the barrel of his enemie’s gun, making the single most iconic Bond image with the vivid blood dripping down the screen. This transitions into the GCI world of the title sequence.

The rest of the sequence is a montage of GCI world in which everything is made of cards, including Bond’s enemies here who disintegrate into cards when fatally hurt. Guns, spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs are seen constantly throughout the sequence, referring to the name of the film and the main plotline, which is focused around a key game of gambolling in a casino, in which Bond must win back stolen money from the antagonist. The music is an up-beat track by Chris Cornell called You know My name. Noticeably this is the first Bond sequence to have no silhouetted women, and is instead filled with silhouettes of Bond and his opponents engaged in combat, reflecting the typical Bond theme of fighting spies. Bond is shown as victorious throughout the sequence, proving to the audience his skills and ability as strong and powerful, undefeatable protagonist.

From time to time Bond appears as normal rather than silhouetted, such as when starring actors are listed – however Daniel Craig’s name is not accompanied by a shot of the actor himself. Similarly, Eva Green’s mention is accompanied with a shot of Craig preparing to shoot the first shot from his silenced pistol in the title sequence. The Silencer represents the stealth of the spy, again supporting the idea of a spy film.

LOST

The second title sequence is from the TV Drama LOST, which features a very different kind of opening sequence. Lasting around 15 seconds, the word ‘LOST’ appears, low opacity and blurred, however flies slowly toward the camera – although in the edit, the 3D camera almost certainly flew towards the text – becoming more opaque and less blurred until it is totally sharp, before blurring as the Camera’s depth of field fails to keep it in focus and the camera moves on past the text to a black screen.

I chose to look at this sequence because it is so unusual, and possibly completely original in style to any other existing title sequence. The sound which overlays it is mysterious, a series of synths and other soft, tense and suspenseful electric noises. It depicts mystery, horror, and suspense. – which basically sums up the show, . It's perfectly fitting - a mysterious title sequence to go with a show about a mysterious island moving, time traveling island, a mysterious island-guru/entity named Jacob and a monster made of Black smoke.

Se7en

 

The opening sequence to Se7en is constructed very much like a thriller or horror. Dark, sepia colours, full of shadow and ghost trails, time lapses, fast cuts, clips of fingers making noted, grotesque drawings. Extreme close ups and camera work seems to be favoured here; the shots, having been taken into editing, have been cut very fast paced and in an (organised) chaotic, confused manner. The final look and style is difficult to make sense of, however derived can be the facts that someone, who's identity is hidden, is studying something possibly inhuman (as can be seen from the image of humanoid hands). This links to the rest of the film - possibly the studies are those of a lunatic looking to murder, or perhaps they are the studies of a scientific experiment or analysis.

Text and titles appears as graffiti, white graffiti which twitches and quivers, sometimes with a larger low-opacity duplicate of the title over itself, like a GCI echo. The sequence has a very large, long list of names to credit - which completely contrasts with the number of credits in the LOST title sequence - which means the sequence is a very long one, also contrasting to the LOST opening. Even so this number of credits in an opening sequence is highly unusual, and I rest assured when the time comes to edit in the credits and names to the thriller opening we will be shooting (hopefully very soon) our number will not even come close to the amount of names within the Se7en sequence. 

The music of this sequence is tuneless; it could be more accurately described as an artistic combination of obscure and abstract noises. Very much like lost, although more classically recognised instruments such as electric guitar and percussion are heard in the series of sounds. Squeaks and scratches within the music, almost as if emitted from a faulty record player,  are consistent throughout the sequence.The sound builds a tensefull feeling, uncertain and alien due to the unnerving style of the 'music' - this too links with the visual effects, both looking and sounding like chaos when both are in fact highly planned and performed to the last detail.