Comments on: To Kill A Mockingbird

By: Lucas

Lucas — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:29:32 +0000

It appears that the typeface used is Helvetica, but I’m not entirely convinced. Does anyone know?

By: pat taylor

pat taylor — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 01:13:23 +0000

This is one of the most tasteful and stylized movie titles EVER!
I saw the movie when it was brand new in theaters. Left me breathless at the time.
Hooray for S. Frankfurt!

By: kristina stewart

kristina stewart — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:14:58 +0000

what are the symbolic values of 1. The drawing of the bird 2. harmonica 3. pocket watch 4. pearl necklace 5. marbles 6. whistle

By: Peter Le5

Peter Le5 — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:02:03 +0000

Was the theme song to the Simpsons “inspired” by this!?

By: Christi

Christi — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:46:05 +0000

Wonderful website. I’m about to launch my career as an English teacher after returning to school at age 43. TKM is my favorite film, and I have always loved the opening sequence. It’s innocence and depth have a powerful impact. When my class reads the novel, I will use this website to study the opening sequence with them. Thank you!

By: Todd

Todd — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:18:24 +0000

First of all… thank you, deeply, for creating this website. Secondly, when I first linked to the website and realized what it was, the first thing that came into my head was a stream of “oh! I wonder if they have _______ up here?” And the first film that came to mind was To Kill a Mockingbird.

Yes I’m a film nut, yes I’m nostalgic and sentimental as a person (often), and with those two admissions I say that watching this title sequence again after maybe almost 10 years brought a tear to the eye. My wife is currently in the other room adding TKaM to our Netflix queue because she has never seen it and the titles just blew her away.

The window reflected in the marble struck me too, this time, and I had never noticed it before. As a life long fan of titles sequences, and an introspective person, I am hard-pressed to think of another sequence that I saw before I saw Mockingbird that made me love titles as much as this one. This I saw in 8th grade—after we had read the book, written a report, delivered an oral report, and then Mr. Fuller showed us the film. Seeing this opening, knowing that it was inside the mind of a child, of Scout… I freaked. I was amazed too, that every 8th grader’s eyes were glued to the screen, and their jaws were in their laps. We were all stunned by it. That’s hard to do to 13-year-olds. We would have thought we would have preferred to have our MTV. Not so, that day.

Major kudos to Mr. Frankfurt, and also to Ian and Alex. How am I going to get any work done now?

By: gl

gl — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 01:45:26 +0000

I am confident in Michael’s information to be true but, when I viewed this sequence for the first time I saw the typeface choice as a statement (I love reading into things)…old, childlike ideals shown against modern realities…yeah it’s a stretch.

At least they new how to set type back then.

btw, can you identify the typeface? It’s very familiar *wink*

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:32:50 +0000

I remember watching the film when I was in high school, after our class read the book. Watching this now I wonder if my teacher (trying to save some time) just skipped the title sequence altogether.

It’s beautifully done, though. And now I want to watch the movie again.

By: MIchael

MIchael — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:11:17 +0000

1960s film designers had to use sans-serif for small typography because tiny serifs wouldn’t have held up when composited over picture using an optical printing bench using the film stock available at the time

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:03:18 +0000

Everything is framed so beautifully … damn. Odd how you think one would have gone “classic” with the type (eg. Serif), but … damn.