‘The art of film title design throughout cinema history.’ article - Homework

‘The art of film title design throughout cinema history.’

This article is a detailed description of film titles and how they have changed and developed through history. The article goes into detail on the silent era of films, I found it interesting that films used white font on a black background simply for appearance, as I thought there would be a bigger concern of making the titles relate to the film’s story structure.

I find the inter titles from the film ‘the new janitor’ to be interesting as the genre can’t be identified through the font style or the use of colour, which is unusual as in modern day cinema titles and fonts play a big role in communicating a theme or genre to the audience. I also find the layout to be interesting due to it taking the form of a book, and strongly resemble a fairy tale. This appears to be unusual for a film to consist of titles, as film takes a visual form, thus I found this to be interesting as it portrays just how drastically film has developed over the years. Also, the fact a comedy and a western have been placed side by side allows a comparison to be made. This comparison is one of similarity, which is peculiar as the genres of the films differ widely yet how they are being portrayed on screen looks almost identical due to the same colour choice and similar font. This intriguing as it shows just how difficult it must have been for an audience to identify genres through the titles of silent films.

I found it appealing to see how much of a different a simple change in font made to a film title, for example Nosferatu. The font used for the later restored version has a far more dramatic impact on the film and actually entitles an audience to create an impression due to the use of visually.

I think the ‘Humorous phases of funny faces’ is a rather outstanding animation, as although it is simple it appears way beyond the time of 1906 due to it looking so visually creative. I find this to be impressive due to the fact it is obvious to see how later animations had been inspired by the concept and have improved It through the development of technology. Another reason I am intrigued by this animation is because of the time it was produced, from watching it I can understand the shocking effect it must have had on an audience as it is such a detailed animation, with a realistic effect to it caused by the detail gone into the drawings. I also admire that the genre can be identified, as from the title the word ‘funny’ suggest it is humorous, and the entertaining comical actions which occur in the film secure the genre and being comedy.

I found the similarities between monsters inc and the man with the golden arm to be shocking due to the resemblance in both visuals and audio. It also just goes to show how inspiring a film title discovery can be and how much it can affect a newer sequence. I like how Susan Bradley anticipated the effects conceived by Fischinger as it portrays just how far an idea will go and just how much effort will be put into an idea until it is perfected, or modernised to suit a new range of audience and their expectations.

I found the Dr no title sequence to be effective due to the signature gun barrel shot being so identically filmed to the shots we see in the recent bond films and also how the shot has always remained the same even after fifty years of bond films being developed.

Finally, I found it interesting to see how title sequences have changed throughout the years to suit social trends, and fit into fashion movements. This portrays the dedication in adapting title sequences and developing them further to suit the time era the film is set it. I also like how the introduction of typography resulted in signature fonts for many different films as still to this day those films are easily identified just through the typography, which portrays just how much of an impact typography was and still is on film titles.