Opening Credits & Title Sequences

Opening credits and title sequences are two different things, and they both have purposes in a film. Opening credits are at the start of the film; they inform the audience what studios are involved in the film and also name the main stars of the cast. Not only does the opening credits involve the studios and the main cast they also provide the tone and theme of a movie, movies like Final Destination (2oo1) gives us an opening with a dark tone and an eerie font lets the audience be aware of the theme of the movie which is horror. Now a title sequence is more different from the opening credits; opening credits are simply listing credits the title sequence has opening credits in them and set the tone or theme with visual effects or sound. The title sequence for Insidious (2010) is a good example at the start it gives an ominous sound with the main cast appearing with the color red already giving the audience a hint that it's a horror film. After that, they show a little boy sleeping in bed and his surroundings are very dark and the pace is slow as they move to show an old lady holding a candle in the dark then while showing the title of the film Insidious then sound quickly becomes high-pitched. With this it's already confirmed the film is based on horror with both the opening credits and title sequences; without the title sequences, we would have no idea what the film would be about. Some techniques that can be employed in an opening sequence are animations, live action close-ups, freeze-framing, glitchy effects, etc. There are many techniques for an opening sequence but most of the time the techniques you use have to match the genre of the film your doing.