Tuesday, 20 January 2009

Research on film opening 2

My second research on brief 3 is the film 'Napoleon Dynamite'. Napoleon Dynamite is a 2004 American independent comedy film co-written and directed by Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess and stars Jon Heder as the main character, Napoleon Dynamite.

While analysing the opening sequence, in order the titles are:
Fox Searchlight Pictures
And Paramount Pictures Present
In association with MTV films
Starring Jon Heder
Preston High as Napoleon Dynamite
Jon Gries
Aaron Ruell
Efren Ramirez
Tina Majorino
With Diedrich Bader
Casting By Tory Weitz
Music By John Swihart
Edited By Jemery Coon
Production Cory Lorenzen
Director Of Photography Mumn Powell
Executive Producer Tory Weitz
Produced By Jemery Coon, Chris Wyatt, Sean Covel
Written By Jared Hess and Jekusha Hess
Directed by Jared Hess

These were the titles in order, and in total there were 19 titles. I think the title order is an effective order and follows the order of most opening title sequences, with the producer company at the very beginning, then whoever is associated with them if any, followed by the actors, and then the casting, music, editing, producer, photography, executive production, and then written by and directed by. Having the director last is on contrast to the Lemony Snicket titles, where the director is first. This was quite a good amount of titles in the duration, which was 2 minutes 33 seconds. This is a fairly small amount compared to the Lemony Snicket film opening titles, but for Snicket's film the titles were at the end, so this may be why. The total of shots in this title sequence is 19, so effectively a new shot for each opening title. This seemed the right amount as you do not want to do too many titles in a sequence as this is confusing, keeping it simple is a good and effective idea in my opinion.


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