Looking at film openings and how the titles are used

Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs has a simplistic approach to the title sequence. The men are walking away from the diner when the titles come on the screen. The roll up the screen to remove any tension the film may have created already. This is typical of the crime thriller genre, yet it does not use any extra effects to make it stand out especially. However, we do hear the theme music whilst the titles are rolling which emphasises this theme that it is a light-hearted take on crime. However the diegetic sound comes over the non-diegetic soundtrack when we hear the voice of one of the men.

There is a dramatic shift used in the way the producer presents the film, in the title sequence the audience is unaware that anything is about to happen, yet then the producer uses a straight cut to the next scene where we see the bloodied figure of one of the men saying ‘I’m sorry”. This heightens the sense of tension and also allows the producer to follow the film on explaining what had happened. The large amount of blood that the producer uses is also a great tool to create tension, as there are many negative connotations with blood.

The Place Beyond The Pines

This opening makes use of one of the main protagonists being exceptionally mysterious. The camera shot is a mid-shot of his back walking away from the camera. This shows the audience that he has a past and it will be revealed late on in the film. The titles appear as he walks, the camera doesn’t cut at all as this happens and this increases the fluency on the screen, as we don’t see a break in the action. We also don’t see the characters face in the shot until he puts a mask on where everything apart from his eyes, which are blocked.

The overall feel of the opening of the film is mysterious as we are completely unaware as to what the situation is on screen. At the start of the scene we see the protagonist with a knife before we see the titles. The producer of the film tries to create tension through the butterfly knife the character has, it shows us that he feels the need to be protected and also shows us he has a relatively high skill level to be able to use it. The titles are simple but effective because we don’t see the camera cut, we do hear the surroundings of the protagonist and the fair ground setting takes the edge off slightly. The film opening doesn’t have such a light-hearted opening in this sense however; because there is no dialogue we also get the impression that the character is an intense individual. However, after this sequence we understand that his profession is a circus stunt man and this illustrates to the reader that this may lead to something else in the future.