2. In 1897, Thomas Edison used a black board to
show the company name and who the copy
right belonged to.
3. This sparked an outburst in film makers marked the
beginning of films with their names
At the beginning of the 20th century these title became hand written text
boards which introduced the film name as well as the company who produced
it. Later down the line they would add decoration to this to make it stand out
amongst the other opening credits although the main reason for inserting
them was to make sure no contracts were violated.
4. With the development of sound within movie the titles also changed,
to fit alongside the music and thus become more dramatic. Soon after,
in the late 30’s, came the insert of actors names into the sequence.
Towards the 40’s film titles maintained more of a gate keeping function for
their films containing more and more names as actors’ agents required their
names to be inserted for publicity.
5. Soon after this television became popular, people would stay at home rather than go out to
the cinema and so companies had to reinvent their movies to make them more interesting for
an audience. Films became wide screen and colourisation was more widely used. Elaborate
“mini movies” were created with the titles on to capture the audience’s attention. There was
constant competition to create a better and more creative “mini movie” to place your credits
onto.
6. With the introduction of computer technology a new era of film
openings began. In 1978, the first digitally generated title appeared in
the movie “Superman” fascinated audience and boosted its viewings
substantially as it was the first of its kind as before this it was seen as
physically impossible to interact in a movie in this way.
During the early 80’s these computer based technologies become
widely available for designers which stimulated a surge in computer
generated credits. This progressed through the 90’s as there was
constant competition to shock the audience digitally.
7. By the late 90’s it was extremely easy for designers and directors to visually portray their
opening titles on the screen. This digital revolution enabled a flow of new techniques and
stiles combined with a few classic ones.
8. Most recently opening sequences have combined typography and space to
create visually astounding pieces of films.
This is especially importantly as today with the aid of 3D animation in cinema
the aim is to create the most interesting and visually pleasing opening sequence
to get the audience excited for the film.
