Research : The Importance Of Opening Titles

Opening titles are designed to tell the audience who is in the movie, it also aims to include other talent who were involved in the productions such as other talent, writers, directors, composers etc. It sets the stage for what is about to come, here is an example. 

That was the opening credits for the popular Netflix show Narchos which was created in 2015.

It begins with ' A Gaumont International Television Presentation'
It then shows a list of actors : Joanna Christie, Maurice Complie and Andre Mattos. As well as the fact they are all south american they are all designated the same screen time, this could show they are less significant actors as the star of the series Wagner Moura who portrays Pablo Escobar as the main character is given his own solo time on the opening credits. Narchos then displays the message ' Hasta Luogo!' this means 'until death'  in Spanish, the show also plays traditional Colombian music which is common in opening credits, the music can set the theme for the rest of the production.

Narchos follows the conventional set up of opening credits.

Stating with the STUDIO OR DISTRIBUTION COMPANY presents ...

THE PRODUCTION COMPANY

IN ASSOCIATION WITH SO-AND-SO PRODUCTION COMPANY

A DIRECTOR’S NAME FILM (or Producer’s)

THE MOVIE STARS

THE TITLE



Lead actor followed by subsidiary actors 

Producers

Directors

However, there is a significant difference in opening titles now compared to when filming orginally began. Most movies in the 1930's up to the 50's listed lots of the cast at the same time, where as now the bigger actors in the film such as Tom Hanks in Forest Gump or Leonardo Di Caprio in the Wolf of Wall Street. The influence of a big actor could draw in viewers who may not necessarily have an interest in the film but may be a fan of that actor.

Up until the 1970's, closing credits for films usually listed only a reprise of the cast members with their roles identified, or even simply just said "The End," requiring opening credits to normally contain the details. For instance, the title sequence of the 1968 film Oliver! runs for about three-and-a-half minutes, and while not listing the complete cast, does list nearly all of its technical credits at the beginning of the film, all set against a background of what appear to be, but in fact are not, authentic 19th-century engravings of typical London life. er than in a separate title sequence. The opening credits for the 1993 film The Fugitive continued intermittently over several opening scenes, and did not finish until fifteen minutes into the film. The opening credits for the 1968 film Once Upon a Time in the West lasted for fourteen minutes.

The first sound film to begin without any opening credits was Walt Disney's Fantasia, released in 1940. In the film's general release, a title card and the credit "Colour by Technicolor" were spliced onto the beginning of the film, but otherwise there were no credits, although closing credits were added to the 1990 re-release and are on the videocassette. This general release version has been the one most often seen by audiences.

Another example of a traditional opening credits sequence was Gone with the Wind which was released in 1939. 

Using the website 'Art of the Title' a dedicated service to present the opening credits to a wide range of films stretching from Hollywood Blockbusters to Independent Film Festival style productions. Using this site we are able to see the the many different ways a films opening title can be presented to an audience. For the films with less of a  budget, the opening titles tend to be significantly shorter, this may be due to less staff being hired as they didn't have the financial backing of the hollywood billionaires that can hire specialists for each department such as a makeup and effects division that could be bigger than some films entire cast. Furthermore due to the financial restrictions of some independent films, their opening titles may be shorter so they can spend less money producing them and spend more on the budget for the actual film.

To view Art of the title for yourself visit
http://www.artofthetitle.com