Art of the Title...

Some times the titles to a movie are better than the movie itself. I could list a whole bunch of films that have left me cold right up until the end credit spectacular. It was around the time of the not so good Lost in Space remake I remember bonkers end credit sequences came in...

If that's your thing or you just want to take a closer look at some of the coolest title sequences, check out Art of the Title.com.

Also check out this geek, who has proven his love of film by cataloging the title frame to every movie he's seen. Bonkers but interesting. Nice to see the trends. 1984 was a great year. The Movie Stills Collection.

Love it.

The last bite is with the eye...

It seems like film credit sequences are getting more and more sophisticated. Is it a bid to keep audiences in their seats to acknowledge the films' talented artisans and technicians, or is it just an indulgent project for some lucky designers and art directors? I went to see Wall E the other day which has a charming end credits sequence - not quite as fun as the Kung Fu Panda credits sequence I blogged about t'other day but very engaging nonetheless. (However, Wall E wins points for the inclusion of a new Peter Gabriel song over its end credits.)

I've found some excellent websites that know a lot more about this subject than I do - and websites that are also are able to round up the best of film titles+credit design more comprehensively than I.

If you love title design, check it out... Forget The Film, Watch The Titles and The Art of The Title.

And as a obvious nod to the so called father of film title design - here's a lovely Saul Bass website. He didn't have After Effects, did he?

I'm not a big fat panda. I'm THE big fat panda...

I went to see Kung-Fu Panda yesterday which in my opinion was an absolute triumph for Dreamworks. Faultless story telling, great voice talent and most importantly really well crafted animation.

The filmed is sandwiched in between two great little set pieces - the initial stunning dream sequence opener, animated by James Baxter, and the end credits - both sequences take a more 2D approach towards the animation. There's a lot of beautifully illustrated scenes making them resemble the more traditional Chinese arts of shadow puppetry and calligraphy.
Shine were tasked with producing the 8 minute title sequence, partly as a fitting tribute to the 900 people who had produced the movie. Typically, as soon as the first credits roll everyone piles out of the theatre - something which annoys me as I find it disrespectful to the people who made the movie. But apparently that's a fairly unique point of view I hold, as one of our movie going companions said to me last night "What, are you telling me you can read everyone's name on that screen?" and comparing my point of view to "like needing to know the name of the tube driver on every journey you make". Well, that's not an entirely unreasonable request to make.... but he's missing the point a little bit. The entertainment industry loves kudos, and I always think it should be extended further than just to the director and actors.

Shine used a mixture of Cel Animation and After Effects to deliver a stonking end credits sequence which was aimed at keeping movie goers sat down for an additional 8 minutes. The horizontal scroller format is unusual, but in keeping with the Chinese theme, and some of the images developed within the sequence manage to be wonderfully charming without competing with the typography. In fact the sequence is so good, should the credits get a credit sequence?
If you're interested in finding out more about behind the scenes from the team at Shine, there's a good article here about it all.
Personally I'd like to see more imaginative ways of displaying credits, then perhaps more people would see the film through right until the end.