Opening credits
A film leader, also title or opening sequence is a film sequence at the beginning of a film to the list of members of the Staff and the film actor. While at the beginning of the development of the film leader simple text panels ushered in the film, he developed in the 1960s by artists such as Saul Bass and Maurice Binder to a stilprägendem genre. Title sequences for films such as Vertigo (1958 ) and Grand Prix (1966 ) are still an expression of contemporary design and illustration.
Historical development
The history of the film leader begins in the early years of the film with the desire of the filmmakers to cling especially in film and to signal the beginning of the film. After the first film leader in Danse Macabre ( Dudley Murphy, 1922) dominated until the 1940s into pragmatic collections of movie Staff. Only in the 1950s, the film leader developed for artistic expression. The commitment of movie companies to name all those involved in the opening credits, understood artists such as Saul Bass, Wayne Fitzgerald and Maurice Binder as an extended space of Filmnarration and design.
When Alfred Hitchcock, who began his career in the silent film era as Title Designer in 1958 published his film Vertigo, he had known at that time as a poster and logo designer Saul Bass committed striven to make a header for the film. Bass continue to go with Psycho ( Alfred Hitchcock, 1960), Bunny Lake is Missing ( Otto Preminger, 1965) and Grand Prix ( John Frankenheimer ) style-defining title sequences. Maurice Binder recorded from 1962 until his death for numerous counting leaders of the James Bond series responsible, including for James Bond - Dr. No 007 (1962). With the striking opening sequence of the Bond films themselves also shows the ability of a title sequence to create, even in conjunction with a theme song a recognition of what ( The Pink Panther, 1963) on the application also comes in the Pink Panther series since the first film.
The design of the film leader to use some directors also serve to underline its author function and to reflect the filmmaking itself. So Jean Cocteau wrote in La belle et la bête (1949 ) by hand the credits with chalk on a blackboard or described Jean -Luc Godard, the facts about the film Contempt (1963 ) as an off-speakers, while the bias itself gives an impression of turning everyday. Quentin Tarantino transferred to the approach in the opening credits to Death Proof (2007) with the supposedly bad movie and copy the cracked film role in the present.
The new style of movement of the title sequence during the 1960s, it found fertile ground in the same advent of television. Given the attractiveness loss of the film studios were eager to upgrade the film to television. In addition to the increasing production of epic films in a few patented widescreen formats studios tried their films with orchestral preludes in elaborate title sequences highlight. The work of Bass should strongly affect the graphics-oriented in the 1960s, opening sequences of numerous television shows. Its graphical minimalism is also quoted in title sequences of current films as Catch Me If You Can ( Steven Spielberg, 2002).
Characteristics
The leader has to anticipate an initial effect without the actual film. The options provide various forms of design. Often the bias is clearly evident designed as part of the film by the names of the parties appear in the foreground, while the action is introduced in the background ( Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese, 1976). Originally, this approach is developed in order to work and copyright information can not be separated easily.
In contrast, a film leader can withdraw content and design of the film. In the introduction to Chinatown ( Roman Polanski, 1974), a hard cut is set about with an image change from statements of historical typography in neutral black and white for the actual film plot, where with the help of film music a link between two elements can be created. Conceivable a film leader is also after a first action sequence, such as in The Draughtsman's Contract (Peter Greenaway, 1982), or the first movie climax, like in the James Bond films.
Some title sequences are produced elaborate and provide its own factory dar. In Delicatessen (Jean -Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, 1991) slides about the camera over a wide variety of items and detailed scenery, where the gaze of the viewer at the end detected by chance the movie title. In some sequences of action movie are compressed and anticipated suggestive. For example, summarizes the bias to Seven (David Fincher, 1995), inspired by Stan Brakhage scratched intro of claustrophobic Desistfilm (1954 ), the entire plot and its resolution compressed together. At the beginning of Casino ( Martin Scorsese, 1995) reached leading man Robert De Niro in a fireball accompanied by the final chorale of the St. Matthew Passion ( " We sit down with tears down " ) in the lap of the night Las Vegas, which anticipates the outcome of the film. Representing this approach are also Vertigo and Psycho, are movie title and theme each taken up in their title sequences.