Looking at opening sequences.

Whilst browsing www.artofthetitle.com i came across many interesting opening title sequences. I realized that things such as font as extremely important as these smaller touches help establish the theme of the movie very early on, way before characters and dialogue are introduced.


Dexter opening title sequence:





After watching the Dexter title sequence, I thought it was really really good. The whole sequence is focused around one main character, Dexter, and his daily morning routine. Each shot slowly reveals more and more of the main character and the audience are lefting waiting to see what he actually looks like - a full body shot isn't shown until the very end of the sequence.


The theme is made extremely clear - Dexter is of the extreme thriller/horror genre. This is made clear from the very first shot which is of a spider being killed. The title that follows this says 'Dexter' and the words look as though they are written in blood, again emphasising the theme and making the colour red a main colour.


The majority of the shots are either ECU's and CU's of parts of either Dexter (eg. his stubble) or his routine (eg. bacon, eggs). Because of this, all of the shots look somewhat grotesque and graphic. A clear example of this is at 0:40 - 0:42 where a tiny drop of blood is magnified and takes over the entire shot. The shot that follows this is of Dexter cutting a slice of meat - because of the closeness of the shot, it's easy to make the mistake of thinking a surgeon is cutting open a human. This happens again many a time - at 1:02 as he cuts up his food, at 1:19 as he juices fruit etc.

In terms of lighting, there are plenty of shadows in the sequence and Dexter is often left partly in shadow himself, suggesting that there are two sides to him and that as well as being normal and having this 'routine,' there is a dark and more sinister side to him.

Dexter is finally revealed to us at 1:41 and despite the fact that he looks relatively normal, everything that we've just seen in the title sequence makes us think that there is much more to this character than what meets the eye. The sequence ends with Dexter casually walking out of his apartment and into the sunlight, playfully eyeing the camera - this suggests to the audience that the genre might not just be horror.

The opening credits are shown continuously throughout the sequence in capital white letters, tinted with shades of red. This makes the words bold and easy to read but at the same time, they don't majorly distract the attention away from what's going on in the shots.

The music throughout the sequence 'fits in' with the cuts and the action in the shots - it also softens the mood of the sequence and makes it seem slightly less grotesque and horror-like as it sounds like a ukelele/guitar was used for the music rather than more sinister sounding instruments eg. cello's. This shows the importance of finding good music for your title sequence - it can alter the mood of it, make it sound more professional etc.