Opening Titles Analysis (Panic Room)

I wanted to do as much research as I could for opening titles, simply because i want to learn and understand how to create such unique and effective looking opening credits. The reason being that i feel they are a very key element in the opening scene of a film as they are the opening to a film, the first part judged, and if they are not pleasing then they are not good enough.

To research the opening titles for this Thriller film i used the website http://www.artofthetitle.com/ it helped me view the opening credits and really get a grip on how they were intended to be portrayed to the audience.

Panic Room opening with the trademark Columbia opening sequence, however one thing that was changed was the music that goes with this sequence. It is replaced with much more alarming sounds, like thunder and lightning. Then it fades to black and the very first thing heard is police sirens, straight away give the audience a sense of suspense and tension. As the colour fades back in, it reveals a establishing shot, displaying the city with the first line of text over it. The font is a fairly bold silver font, it also includes a sense of 3D to it to help it clearly stand out from all the other colours in the city scene background. Many jump cuts are used to switch to a different set of buildings with a different title over it, whether it be main actors of big companies involved. Throughout all this time the sounds being emitted consist of traffic and the normal sounds heard in a city, also very high string music that is commonly associated with Thriller films. Eventually a pan shot is used to reveal the title as it pans, this changes from the normal more still image like shots. Another feature I think is important to point out is the angles of the shots. This is done very effectively, if it is a high angle shot of the buildings, the text over the top will also be in the same position, this helps really link the titles in with the surroundings making it not only more creative but eye-pleasing. The sounds do change as the opening credits continue, when the title of the film 'Panic Room' is displayed in a more bolder and larger font the high string music increases in tempo and adds in new 'on edge' sounds, this is an attempt to help begin the suspense that is so renowned for Thrillers.

I think what we can learn from the opening titles from the film Panic Room is that we can try to incorporate them into the surroundings but at the same time make them sufficiently stand out. This would be good as it brings the titles and the scene together to help set the scene instead of both, titles and scene being nothing alike and in no real way linked and therefore not creating a simple yet effective opening title sequence.