Structures Of Film Openings

A way a film is structured is very essential, if the audience isn't captivated they may lose interest and perceive the rest of the movie as uninteresting. There are 4 different ways to how a movie can be structured and these are said to be: discrete, narrative, credits over a black screen and stylised editing. In this post I will identify what these structures are and show some title sequence examples of the 4 structures. 


Discrete title sequences are often heavily edited, they stand apart from the rest of the movie due to the amount of editing that has been used in it. This type of style uses many transitions, edits and fonts drawing the audience in without them getting too bored. An example of this is the movie "Se7en" which explores the mental state of mind of a sadistic serial killer, murdering his victims according to the seven deadly sins.

A narrative opening is when credits are playing without no interruption, these type of openings usually make it easy for the audience to understand the location of the movie, for example in "Panic Room" we see the credits being placed on top of buildings which seem to look as if they are in New York.

Credits over a black screen, is simply title names being placed over a black screen. From the movie "Donnie Darko" you can see the same type of structure being used. Although, this opening will be easy to make it isn't anything special and loses the interest of the audience. However it can build tension and add more suspense to the story line. 

Stylised openings are a structure that includes many editing techniques, it takes a long time to produce but it is interesting to watch how these effects come together. The title sequence of "The Taking of Pelham 123" uses many edits, they use fast forwarding techniques and use many transitions in terms of a scene sliding into the next. 

After seeing many of these openings, our group chose to use a discrete title sequence as it is effective and isn't too edited neither too plain to watch.