Top 7 Movie Title Sequences

I love title sequences.  The opening title sequence sets the expectation for a movie.  And, as any marketer knows, managing expectations is the key to customer satisfaction.  The title sequence hooks us, gets us ready to suspend disbelief and enter into the story.  It sets the tone and hints at what’s going to happen.  It has become an art in its own right. The following are my personal favorites.  I’ll start with Saul Bass’s famously pioneering title sequence from North by Northwest.  Simple and effective, it’s one of Bass’ most famous sequences.

Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film “Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb”, starring Peter Sellers, George C. Scott and Sterling Hayden.  The title sequence design by Pablo Ferro.  It is dreamy, surreal and memorable. It’s funny that I don’t remember a lot about the movie, but I remember this title sequence vividly.

SE7VEN, directed by the master of weird, David Fincher, starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow.  This sequence uses creepy, slightly disorienting closeups and threatening music to awesome effect.

James Bond Casino Royale.  Just awesome use of the playing card themes.

Thank You For Smoking.  This is one of my all time favorite title sequences.  The song is perfect and it’s a great use of object labels as titles.

Eurotrip has to be included. Though not the best movie, it’s opening title sequence is gold.

And finally, the one and only Napoleon Dynamite.  The use of food is pathetic and funny and sets the tone perfectly for the weird, coming of age American comedy. Why type when you can use food?

If I missed any really good ones, let us know in the comments.  I’m sure I haven’t seen the best title sequence out there.  Maybe I’ll change this post to “Top 10 Movie Title Sequences” if there is a “must see.”

Cinema: The Seventh Art?

Let me preface my post with a little… nevermind, new direction:

Life advice from the Guy Next Door: Be a solid generalist, a renaissance man; in the next several years, beware of well-packaged campaigns (advertising, politics, etc) without any substance because a lot of people are still sheep;  surround yourself with smart people because they will make things happen;  as an exercise, think of three places you haven’t been and would like to go, and three things you would like to be good at: you will learn things about yourself; and finally, body-surfing in the Pacific– connecting with nature– is Nectar.  That’s what he said.  Nectar.

OK, moment over, but I couldn’t pass that up.  And John, you win again: most thorough and well-articulated post of the day (week) for “…The Seventh Art.”

Is cinema the Seventh Art?  Yes, I think so.  It is not just a combination of the others.

• Cinema has an almost unlimited ability to exploit its unique technical aspects (foreign to theater)– multiple and simultaneous story-lines, split-screen, reverse-speed motion, one actor can play more than one character in the same scenes, short cutaways to expose or develop plot;
• It constantly envelops new art forms (computer graphic manipulation, 3-D, who knows what tomorrow);
• It commands the audience’s sensory perspective completely in a way not shared by theater.  For example, which way do you see this dancer spinning?  Supposedly right-brained people see her spinning clockwise, while left-brained people see the opposite.  But it is an example of perfect visual ambiguity.

These abilities of cinema are wholly  unique, and while the other arts have certain elements foreign to cinema (the written word, sculpture, etc), none of them has its breadth of potential.

Those of us in or entering the world of cinema should remember that “with great power comes great responsibility” (to quote Spider-Man’s grandma).  Our medium has the ability to evoke emotions very easily, and is therefore dangerous.  A certain Prussian dictator, for instance, commissioned the famous commercials that advanced the Hitler Youth.  Beware the well-packaged issues without substance.  Schrader would agree, Tarantino wouldn’t.  Did I just link Tarantino to Hitler?  Whoops.