Article:The Art Of Film Title Design Throughout Cinema History

These are five main points made in the article which I found interesting:

Click here to view the article: The Art of Film Throughout Cinema History

"Film titles can be great fun. In them we see the bond between the art of film making and graphic design — and perhaps visual culture as a whole. They have always served a greater purpose than themselves: to move the overarching story forward."

I found this point made in the article interesting because it completely sums up the need for title sequences. Title sequences become a chance for people to take a story and visually turn it into a piece of motion art; still enabling a story to be told or introduced to the audience, without making it extremely complex. I like how they are described as being fun because the title sequence is able to do so many things in such a short period of time such as telling the audience the genre of the film or perhaps suggesting the setting, introducing us the viewer to certain characters of the story.  

"Words and lettering played an enormous role in films of the silent era."

This point was very interesting to me as its clear that words and lettering did play a huge role in the era of silent films, yet they have continued to play a massive part throughout the history of cinema because words and lettering are required in the larger majority if no all film. 

"During the 1920s and ’30s, European cinema was deeply influenced by modernism..."

Below:"main title from D.W. Griffith’s “Intolerance” (1916), which many reviewers and historians consider the greatest film of the silent era"

Modernism can be defined as being when a 'genre of art and literature that makes a self-conscious break with previous genres' meaning a development in a genre keeping it up to date with new technologies and art. I interpreted this point as meaning that there was a rapid development in the style of the film which was being produced during the 1920s and '30s within Europe, although I would go as far to say that this is the continuing way to view cinema world wide as it is constantly being improved. A prime example of this could be seen in the 90s with the high development of visual effects-such as shattered glass; which played a prominent part in the opening title sequence for the James Bond film: 'Tomorrow Never Dies' (1997).

"It could be argued that typography lost importance in this era of title design. The imagery behind the credits received a lot more attention."

Its clear to me that this can sometimes be the case in anything the audience watch, in some situations there is so much going on in a single frame, at an one particular time that it is near impossible to take in everything happening after seeing it just once.Which is why I would agree to a certain extent that there is a possibility that the credits would not receive the same degree of attention as that of the imagery.

"...the measure of a title designs quality is the same now as it was in the silent era. Whatever function they perform, titles remain an essential part of film."

This statement is true in saying that the titles remain an essential part of any film. They introduce the audience to so much information about the film, that it almost serves as a summary of the film within the space of a few minutes.