Analysing two film title sequences

                           Analyzing two film title sequences

Last of Us

The title sequence of the movie ‘Last of Us’ begins mysteriously, the first thing we see is the title of the movie, written in white, bold text, companioned by a black background.  It starts of in a dark colour, connoting fear and danger and with a slow-paced classical non-diegetic music which sounds depressing. We then see branches of trees in black and white expanding and stretching over the screen, perhaps conveying the idea that evil is slowly surrounding everyone in the movie, establishing the dark tone of the film. This is then followed by the credits abruptly appearing on the screen while it seems that a news-reporter is speaking in the background, talking about number of deaths, yet again foreshadowing that something evil happened in the movie. It then sets the setting (Los Angeles), as well as introducing the main antagonists in the film, ‘The Fireflies’ along with the plot of the movie, world destruction. Overall, I found this title sequence very effective, mainly due to the contrasts in the colours black and white, perhaps connoting good and evil. This could also be a way to set the tone of the movie with the help of the diegetic sound and the alarmed voice of what seems to be one of the characters in the movie.

Raging Bull

Raging Bull’s title sequence begins with an ident of the producers of the movie, MGM. It then establishes some of the credits written in white text on a black background. A grey-scale shot is then shown of what seems to be a boxer in a ring along with the title of the movie ‘Raging Bull’ appearing on the screen, implying that this movie contains violence, also connoted by the colour red used in the title and the word ‘raging’. The credits then continue rolling while the boxer seems to be preparing for a fight. After a long wait, when the credits finish rolling, the setting and location is then set: New York, 1964. A medium shot is then showed of what seems to be a doctor speaking to himself at 8:30 in the evening and then the screen fades to black. To conclude, this title sequence started well as it had be intrigued but by the time the credits stopped rolling I became severely bored, due to the long wait. However, the ending has regained my attention as it introduced more factual detail about the setting of the film and one of what seemed to be the main chracter.