HW 2b - Analysis of Titles in Film Openings

Creed (2015) 

The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016)

The title sequences that I will compare are 'Creed' (2016) and 'The Huntsman: Winter's War' (2016). Both films are similar in the fact that they are apart/based of a popular franchise; Creed is linked to the 'Rocky' franchise while The Huntsman: Winter's War is linked to the 'snow white' franchise. However, the genre's are widely different with Creed being a sport drama, in contrast to The Huntsman being a fantasy adventure film.


Running Order
'The Huntsman' consistently places its titles in the corners of the screen as this ensures they do not take away too much attention from the action on screen. However, it all depends on what is actually happening on the screen, for example if action is happening on the right of the screen then the title will appear on one of the left corners and if something is falling towards the bottom of the screen then the title will appear in one of the bottom, corners. The only exception to this is some of the star billing, such as 'Emily Blunt, where the title appears central to the screen


'The Huntsman: Winter's War' begins with the director and then moves on to the writers, character inspiration, producer, executive producers, director of photography, production designer and editor. After this, the star billing follows with 'Chris Hemsworth', the male lead, first and then the villain, love-interest and remaining of the main cast. Then, music, costume designer, casting, visual effects supervisor and 'A Roth Films Production'.

Similarly, 'Creed' begins with the producers and distributers and then the film title, i.e. details and crew of the film. Then you see the director, screenplay, story writer, producers, executive producers, director of photography, production designer, music, editors, costume designer, visual effects supervisor and casting. In contrast, 'Creed' finishes its opening sequence mostly with the star billing instead of the crew, like in 'The Huntsman'.

Placement of Titles


'Creed' places the majority of its titles central to the screen, no matter whether action is occurring on screen or not. Since the majority of the shots include the male lead, Adonis, either by himself or accompanied by another one of the other main characters, the titles would be next to or in between the characters on screen. This not only draws the audiences attention to the titles it ensures the characters on screen are still the main attention-grabber.

Timings

In 'The Huntsman' the titles consistently appear every couple of shots and seem to have little correlation with the music. In contrast, in 'Creed' the titles seemingly appear to the beat of the music, as well as this multiple titles in 'Creed' appear in every shot due to the still of the shot being what fades out consistently.

Style

'Creed' has a very dark color scheme in comparison to 'The Huntsman' This is peculiar due to the fact that even though 'The Huntsman' is the relatively darker film in relation to genre and story line yet its color scheme is relatively brighter to that of 'Creed'. On the other hand though, even with a some what brighter color scheme 'The Huntsman' still portrays a much darker genre; this could be due to the lack of characters appearing and therefore a low amount of emotion which the audience can feel through a human connection. In contrast to this 'Creed' has a much more slow-paced opening sequence with the majority of its shots including main characters from the film; therefore giving the audience someone to connect with and inform them that this film will be based around human interaction.