General Research Into Title Sequences

The Opening credit of a title sequences are important as they tell us the genre, to form the expectations of the audience.

The opening credits give fundamental amount of detail, they introduce the main/key characters to the audience, their personality how they act, how they behave, their ideologies, principles, etc all through the opening titles. The setting and era are also shown in the opening titles to give the audience a sense of time and place.

Again the opening credits also sets up an expectation or a mood. The mood of the film relates to the genre, for example a horror film like 'Sorority Row'. Which portrays a certain atmosphere through the use of mise-en-scene, diegetic sound, and the contrast between the very beginning part of the opening credits, where the atmosphere its eerie and oppressive, compared to the party sequence, where its almost like the calm before the storm, as they are having a good time. Yet hand-held camera is used to create the image that someone is walking round the house, to keep the eerie atmosphere in place.

In the opening credit Institutional information is given, such as director, produce, studio etc. Sometimes the audience can tell what the genre of the film might be by the director, since he/she might have produced films of the same genre as before.

Also Opening credits grabs the audience, so but doesn't give the story away. The opening credits give hints to what the narrative might include, for example Se7en does this, through the use of mise-en-scene, like the photographs, the colour desaturation, the crossed out faces. Yet it doesn't give the plot away to the audiences and keeps them in suspense by leaving questions on their minds.