Art of The Title

Film: Se7en

The opening of the thriller I have chosen to analyse is Seven, released in 1995, produced and directed by Kyle Cooper. One of the first things I noticed is that there is a lot of editing in this opening title sequence, Kyle Cooper uses frequent cutting rate with jump cuts from one slide to another to portray the fact this film is fast paced and dramatic, with a fair amount of action in the narrative as he seems to be preparing for something. In the foreground there are names that flash up, including the lead actors as they are key selling points of the film. This sequence was filmed in the colour of black and white and also ‘sepia’ which may reflect on the underlying darker tone to the narrative. The abrupt flashes of the colour red could  imply something of greater darkness could happen later, due to the fact the colour red is often associated with the connotations of death and violence. 

The narrative opening emphasizes details in certain objects; this is a captivating technique which I think works well to engage with the audience. The font used in the opening sequence is in a ‘handwritten’ style, just like the writing seen on the paper. It creates a great connotation between them and an atmosphere of danger and violence. The names in the titles are initially shown on a black background and then the background changes to detailed, close-up imagery. I like the use of this technique as it enables the audience to still see the names clearly but it does not steal attention from the imagery.

The music is also used for the same effect as the imagery and editing. It starts off quite slowly and quiet with an underlying beat that stays the same all the way through, enhancing consistency in the title. Gradually other sounds start to play while building up tension as well as rhythm and loudness. We also hear noises that associate themselves with the imagery behind them e.g. the turning of the pages of a book.

Finally, I enjoyed the way the images are revealed to us in this opening title; they are all connected to each other, giving some clues to the narrative of the film but they do not give too much away. They are enough to give the audience an idea of the the movie and keep them intrigued. This is a perfect balance because it gives more than enough to keep the audience interested but not enough for them to know the story of the film. We see images of pages of books, pens writing on paper, a series of close-ups on hands and scissors cutting film and pictures. Certain words were also highlighted, which imply that those words may hold great significance to the narrative later on in the film. The close-ups and extreme close-ups work like a montage to engage the audience without giving too much away, for example if mid shot of a character had been used, the audience would have been less interested because it may have revealed too much and lose suspense. This is a technique I admire and hope to use in our opening to a thriller film.