'Words and lettering played an enormous role in films of the silent era. Film titles made their appearance in the earliest silent films, along with letter cards (or inter-titles), which provided context. These cards were the responsibility of the lettering artist, who collaborated with the scriptwriter and director to create narrative continuity so that audiences could follow what they were seeing. Distinct from these inter-titles was the film’s main title, a vehicle of particular concern to film producers because of the legal, copyright and marketing information this footage had to bear.'

"Film titles and letter cards had to provide essential information to the viewer. For reasons such as ease of production and clarity, artists favored mono-stroke letterforms or characters with small serifs. White lettering on a black background is another characteristic of this era, because titles simply looked better this way when projected with live-action B&W film.
The following inter-titles are typical of silent movies. A shot from the comedy The New Janitor (1914) featuring Charlie Chaplin is on the right, and the silent western West of Hot Dog (1924) is on the left: "

My Opinion
I thought this section of the article was interesting, it shows how some of the first title sequences where shown, which we can compare to modern title sequences. I also find it quite dull and comparing them to todays title sequences they are very basic.






Typography Resources

Below you’ll find links to some downloadable typefaces that were used in or inspired by film titles from cinema history. Please read the legacy notes before downloading.

HPHLS Vintage Prop Fonts

An amazing collection of revived vintage fonts, many of which were used in early cinema. Among them are faces based on the National Old Style, Colwell Handletter and Post Monotone no. 2. Only some fonts can be downloaded for free, although the entire collection is available on CD at an affordable price.

Silentina-The Silentina font family is a great modern take on typography from silent film inter-titles. Designed by Ray Larabie in 2004.

Hitchcock-Hitchcock was created by designer Matt Terich as an homage to the lettering style of the iconic Saul Bass. The font is available as a free download, and you’ll find a selection of other typefaces in the same vein.

Movie/TV Related Fonts-Here is a collection of free fonts styled after the main titles of famous films and TV shows.

Waltograph-Waltograph was created by Justin Callaghan in an attempt to capture the spirit of the familiar Walt Disney signage.

finish!!!

Film Pitch Brief Summary

What Genre is your film? – 
Thriller, Mystery, War, Historical, Political
What other films inspired your film?– 
Inception, Inglorious Bastards, Defiance, Leon, Fight Club
Who is the target audience for you film? –
 20-30 Male (second target audience what be followers of stars)
When will your film be released?– 
Summer 2012
How much money will your film cost to make? – 
$80-100 million
How much money will your film make? – 
$500 million Profit
Who will star in your film? –
Leonardo Dicaprio, Colin Hanks, Liev Schreiber.
Who will direct your film? –
Clint Eastwood (May change)

Opening Sequence

Inception

The idea of subconsciousness will play a big role in our film and perhaps a major part of our title sequence. Both have a lot of shapes which then go into buildings, floors and mazes. This would tell the audience what they should expect from the film. Another thing that I noticed is the colour which is used a lot is black, it seems that this is to show the darkness of the subconscious and each of the characters.     

(As Inception doesn't have a official title sequence I have put two alternative ones instead)






Defiance 

This is a great title sequence, it shows actual video from the concentration camps and other areas in Germany and Poland at the time. This would work well with our title sequence as it gives a clear indicator on what the film will be about and would be a prologue for the rest of the film and give some background on the history of the war.

We also get factual information about the Second World War in a typewriter typography, this would be relevant to the time of the film as main way of typing on such information like documents. This would be a good idea to use in our title sequence as it would suit our title sequence which is based in the 1960s.
Near the end of the title sequence we get the change from black and white to colour, this is to bring the audience into the time period which we may use in our sequence.

Media Pitch

This is our film PowerPoint that we had to pitch to our class, the reason we had todo this was to prepare for out title sequence.
I think, as a group we have a clear plan on what we want to design and how to show this through our title sequence.

In the PowerPoint we needed the following information:
-Genre
-Inspiration
-Target Audience
-Release Date
-Budget
-Profit
-Actors
-Directors
-Whats The Film Really About  

Working titles

Kiera and I had to find important information about Working Title Studios. We then had to pitch what we found out to the rest of the class.