Opening Titles Comparison

Comparison of Opening Titles

I looked at two opening titles to see what was similar and the differences. I chose to study recent titles which was ‘World War Z’ and ‘Fast and Furious 6’, which was two minutes and ten and two minutes seven seconds long, therefore useful to compare to see what was different in the two minutes as they was similar times.

Firstly, ‘World War Z’ had a lot more diegetic sound in as the opening titles included a news report with a lot of talking and in public places, the train station for example, which made the opening titles seem more realistic towards the audience. Compared to ‘Fast 6’ which was more unrealistic events that would happen, for example the car chase which included going underneath lorries and flipping the cars into rivers off trains, interesting but not realistic.

However, ‘Fast 6’ was more gripping for the audience to watch. It included a lot of action that has happened in the past Fast and Furious’ therefore showing the audience the storyline which may encourage them to want to watch ‘Fast 6’. Whereas ‘World War Z’ was slow paced with a more general feel to it, feeling like it could take some time to get to the main action of the movie, as it would make the audience question why there was a news report and making them ask questions about what happened for it to be such a disaster.

Being extremely fast-paced the opening title to ‘Fast 6’ makes a lot of tension for the audience to watch as a lot of action happens in such a short amount of time with names entering and exiting the scene throughout all of the opening sequence. Although, ‘World War Z’ did introduce a lot of names quickly, they was entered into the scene in a different way through the mystery ‘Z’ shape that was panning across the screen throughout the entire title sequence showing chaos and being secretive as there was so many people in the sequence it was not entirely clear of what everyone was doing. However, ‘World War Z’ had a lot more dialogue than ‘Fast 6’ implying that the audience was told the story as in ‘Fast 6’ they had to work it out just through what they had seen. The dialogue in ‘World War Z’ got faster towards the end creating a build up to introducing the film suggesting that it has suspense throughout.

Both of the opening titles contain a signifier that will represent the film. ‘World War Z’ has the ‘Z’ shapes fading in and out of the screen whilst introducing people showing that they title sequence is coming up and clearly implies that the film is starting. In comparison, ‘Fast 6’ introduces new locations, the main actors and scenes through tyre screeches, brakes and car parts to link the two separated scenes together.

Overall, the two sequences are of the same length but a lot of different action happens in both of them, both being fast paced however different types of action being realistic and others being an unusual lifestyle. Both of which may suit the same target audience as they are both popular thriller films that have good ratings.