Contemporary titles VS. Older titles

Contemporary titles vs. older titles

Contemporary title sequences:

Contemporary style includes quite modern day title sequences, often featuring minimalistic or abstract concepts. Saul Bass, a title sequence designer, produces many of his title sequences to be in a contemporary style, using shapes and typography to set the scene, instead of relying on filmed footage.

Contemporary title sequences allow for a lot more creativity, with audiences in the modern era being very open minded to interpretation and underline meanings. A good example of this is The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), a story about a heroin addict, with the designer of the title sequence being Saul Bass. The use of slim triangles and the contrast with a light grey and black can give all sorts of connotations that the audience can be willing to infer for themselves, with the rectangles perhaps representing the needle used to inject heroin. The black could also connote death, with death being considered a very grim subject.

However, as contemporary title sequences can be so open minded, things may be left lost in translation and audiences may not understand what is going, therefore concluding to a general distaste towards the film. Older titles using footage they have filmed may be easier for audiences to understand, but not as exciting and thought provoking as contemporary styles.

Older title sequences:

Older title sequences use a lot of cards and small pieces of footage to explain what is going on, commonplace in silent films. Text can obscure the scene, however this may not be an issue if the film is being explained through the text. They were often not very adventurous, with typography all being of the same high class stylised look.

Audiences will have got a clear idea of what the film was about if cards explained, alongside footage. Whilst some of the film may have been spoiled, there would be little confusion to it, unlike contemporary title sequences, which might only make sense half way through the film. Also as Technicolor wasn’t invented until the 1950s, anything before that would have had a simple grey scale colour scheme, making it easy to look at.

However, audiences may have got bored quickly of this well established style, for example with Hammer Horror repeating itself with The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (1958) and Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966). Whilst they had been set classics and were expected to do very well, people may have disliked the similar tone set to the start of each film, and wanted more, which was what contemporary styles brought to the world of film.