Reasearch: Typography and opening credits

Opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list and is the most important members of the production. They help the audience recognise the actors that are starring in the film. Opening credits present at all, identify the major actors and crew, while the closing credits list an extensive cast and production crew.

What is their purpose and what do they provide?

Opening credits are used to introduce important roles, or in some cases the most famous actor/actress, these noted roles consist of director, writer and main characters. Watching the opening credits also give the audience basic information about the film they’re going to watch. For example if they’re going to watch a thriller the opening credits font would be creepy and so would the colours involved. This can be shown through the use of typography.

How do they make the audience feel?

Different film genres would create different emotions for the audience. This is the same in opening credits. For example the music involved for a happy comedy film would be fast paced high pitched music the make the audience feel happy and the pictures involved would also be happy scenes. However, in contract to a thriller they would use dark music to make the audience feel uncomfortable from the start.

Se7en

Throughout the opening credits for the thriller ‘Se7en’ colours, lighting and font are used to make the audience feel uncomfortable. The use of the dark colour makes the audience infer that death would be involved and anything can happen so it gets there heart beating and keeps them on the edge of their seat waiting for something to happen. Similarly, the low key lighting has the same effect. The use of the red blood splatting onto the book makes the audience automatically have an understanding of what they’re watching as blood links with horror and thrillers and therefore they’d know what to expect from the film. This is conventional to a thriller as they aim to m are there audience cringe and make their heart beat faster than usual

In addition the use of the slow leery create an uncomfortable atmosphere for the audience. Also the use of the scratching sounds and the radio station changing sounds have a similar effect as they’re not normal sounds you would hear during your day. This is unusual to the audience and therefore they feel worried. The use of this is also conventional to a thriller as the target of thrillers are to make the audience members unfordable and kept on the edge of their seats.

Finally I used these ideas and preceded them into my thriller production to make the audience members feel worried and unfordable at all times as well getting to know the characters. I believe this is the most effective way to make the audience feel these emotions.

Typography is how writing is presented to the audience through font, style, size, letter case and colour in film.

IronMan Action: The opening credits to ironman uses the front as big and bold to give the audience the understanding that the film is going to have a lot of action related content.  This is evidently understood that it is an action film as in a thriller the use of font would usually be small and italic to create a mysterious effect

As shown above for my thriller production I want to use the typography of ‘Se7en’ as it made me feel uncomfortable as I couldn’t read the writing clearly. Also the writing will be small and italic to make it creeper compared to other genres.