Please read the following explanation carefully to the end. This assignment is an exercise in
analysis, an essay, a close reading of a significant movie title sequence – both in itself and in
relation to the movie as a whole. The choice of sequence is up to you, and part of the assignment.
You can choose the main titles for any film or television show of your choice. The clip you work
with should not be shorter than thirty seconds, nor longer than four minutes; use the entire credit
sequence for your paper. The whole exercise will take you at least 6-8 hours to do reasonably well.
When first mentioning the film, make sure to include the director and year of release. Refer to all
characters by name (with the correct spelling), and give the actors’ names in parenthesis when you
first mention them. You can find this and other information at the Internet movie database,
www.imdb.com, but you often don’t see listed there who is responsible for the title sequence. If
you don’t know who designed your title sequence, try everything to find out, and document your
efforts to do so if you fail.
This exercise has three parts. Please do all three parts separately (don’t mix up descriptions of
scenes with annotations on scenes and analysis of them); read the assignment carefully and closely.
All three parts must be completed for you to receive credit.
1. Brief Description of Title Sequence
Put your name on the paper. Choose a movie and describe the title clip briefly, in a paragraph or
two. It may help to indicate whether you used BluRay, DVD, VCR tape, or streaming services; in
some cases you may want to indicate the use of a re-release, or a re-mastered version, or the like.
2. Analysis / Shot by Shot Description
Capture a still of each shot you write about, and insert it into your text. The quality of captured
images need not affect your grade, but give it your best. You might find it helpful to refer to the
UCI Library guide on visual literacy and to standard
vocabulary on film analysis.
Don’t just give the name of the series of shots (as in long shot, close up, etc.) Observe in detail the
following information about each shot:
•the time of each shot (beginning and ending; what marks the end? how?)
•the length of the shot (how long it lasts)
•a description of the shot
•an annotation (comment, explanation, information) on the shot.
•who and / or what is in the shot?
•camera angle, lighting, focus (in? out? deep?)
•does the camera move (in what direction or directions and how quickly)?
•film stock: black and white? color? change from one film stock to another to the other?
celluloid? digital? comment on colors if it seems relevant
•If there is animation, is it 2D or 3D? Is it combined with live action? With stock images?
With black frames? Describe special effects, if any. Are any optical illusions created or
debunked? Is there a visual rhythm, an audiovisual tension, a juxtaposition or montage of
the diverse elements making up this sequence?
•What do you see? Space or surface, aerial views or interiors, clouds, eyes, water, blood,
clothes, faces, guns, abstract shapes, walls, signage, fences, doors, streets, cars, houses,
people, bodies, books, clocks – nothing is accidental. This is a highly compressed form:
everything in an opening sequence is designed very carefully. What do these elements do?
What do they add up to?
•What kind of motion graphics technology can you discern? Discuss typography, luminosity,
coloring and grading, the use of still images or moving images, the use of icons or symbols;
the placement of these elements on the screen (do they float before something or displace
something, do they slip away, intertwine, dance, scroll, multiply, rotate, spin, swirl,
fuse…?) Is it retro, futurist, cartoonish or cinematic, fast or slow…?
•Is there a self-referential aspect to this sequence? What code does it play with? Does it feel
like a TV ad, an MTV clip, an experimental short, a random channel-hop, a trailer?
•Describe the sound track: silent, music (diegetic or extra-diagetic) and genre/type of music,
ambient noise, voice-over, etc.
•What are the keys, metaphors, devices, cues that are at the core of this sequence?
3. Analytical Essay
Give a 3-5 page close reading of your title sequence. This is an essay, so have a thesis and avoid
plot summary. Your essay is on this title sequence in itself and in relation to the film as a whole:
what does it do to set the mood? To signal genre, location, date, etc.? My lectures offered a series
of models and concepts. You should address the title sequence primarily on its own, but also in
how it relates to the film. Here please do not discuss each shot in succession (that was the point of
part two). This is a synthesis of your analysis in the previous sections. You should have something
to say about most or all your observations from section 2, and something to tie them together.
Please note that all parts of must be completed, and turned in on time, for you to receive credit,
and all assignments for the course must be completed and turned in on time to pass the course.
Please do not forget to put your name on your document.
Last Completed Projects
| topic title | academic level | Writer | delivered |
|---|