Analysis of contempory titles/opening vs. older titles/opening.

Part of research im going to compare conrempory title sequences with older opening sequences. I have decided to choose Saul Bass 1958's Vertigo and Kevin Tod Haug's 2002 Panic Room.







With Saul Bass's opening title sequence for Vertigo. The music was written by Bernard Herrmann and is the first thing that we hear when the sequence starts, this music has a eery sound to it and straight away sets a sense of horror and despair to the films theme. The beginning of the title sequence is We then get a close up shot of a girls corner of her face, it then zooms in on her lips. when it zooms up on to her eyes, the audience can tell that she is worried as she looks left and right. it then zoom in to her individual eye which turns the screen red and go's inside her eye. Then colourful swirls on a black background appear with cast and crews names appearing at the side. These swirls suggest a hypnotic, psychotic theme within the film. Before the film starts the camera then zooms back out of the swirls into the eye. This suggest a dreaming element within the film.







Kevin Tod Haug's opening title sequence for panic room starts of with a New York city skyline. This immediately shows were the film is set in. As different views of the New York skyline appears names of cast and crew in the sky and on buildings. The music which is dark and thrilling is played over quite digetic sound such as cars, horns, sirens, wind ect. When the title "Panic Room" appears the music picks up tempo and can almost here a sound of a clock ticking which suggests that time is running out. The change of tempo foreshadows that during the film something will happen for the films tempo to pick up. The film then goes into two women talking along a bust New York Street.


These two title sequences are both very different even though they are from the same genre. For its time Saul Bass's "Vertigo" is very chilling and a great but yet simple effective sequence. Kevin Tod Haug's "Panic Room" is also very simple and yet very dark. What both of these title sequences have is great music which sets the tone and the mood of the film and lets the audience know what this film is about.