DEXTER title sequence re-edit evaluation

1. Summarise the conventions of title sequences that were most important to this task.

Creating a successful title sequence involves several important aspects such as timing, font and sizing. The font must be suited to the genre of the film/TV show which follows. If the genre is horror, this should be conveyed using a creepy font. Colour is also important as it allows the titles to stand out. If you have a black background then a lighter colour should be used otherwise they will be hard to see. Timing is important to create a sequence which is enjoyable for the audience to view. If the timings overlap then the audience could get confused and the sequence won't flow. Titles should not detract attention from what is going on in the title sequence so they should not be too big or placed in front of the action.

2. How did your group plan to edit the title sequence?

First we decided how many titles we wanted and where we were going to put them and then we got into the actual editing of the titles. We began by making a rough plan of which shots we wanted to put titles on. We then decided on a font style and colour to fit in with the crime/thriller genre. When we were happy with the design of our titles, we ensured that they were neither too big nor too small and that they were placed where they would be easily visible without detracting attention from what is going on in the sequence.

3. Explain the creative decisions made by your group.

We chose for our titles to be red as it fits in well with the genre as the colour red is often associated with blood and murder. To make our titles stand out, we used capital letters and a font which was easily legible. As I previously mentioned, we put our titles in places where we thought would not take away from the action however where they could be clearly seen. We played around with different effects and we particularly liked a 'twitching' effect however we faced some problems when using this effect and so decided to settle for a fade which ended up working very well.

4. How does your re-edit compare to the original?

Our re-edit shares quite a few similarities with the original. For example, both our titles and the original titles are red. As well as this, both titles are in capital letters. I think that the effects used on the original title sequence are more effective than the simple fade which we used, however, if we had been given more time to complete this task I feel that we could have put some more interesting effects on our titles to make a better sequence. Another issue with our re-edit is that we only included 8 titles whereas the original sequence has a lot more than that.