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A cobwebbed pagan on a post adorns the protagonist’s credit. It is probable that this particular pagan once navigated the woods a la “Evil Dead” and attended the kind of parties Stanley Kubrick featured in his films. There’s a sophisticated fairy tale for you.

Tim Burton’s opening title sequence for the great “Edward Scissorhands” has all the meticulous detail and matching heart of his best work; anthropomorphic steampunk featuring fantastic tinkerings; riveted, wrought-iron cadavers (including production-line shells exhaling through knived teeth) in a wonderful blue-lit thalassic hue.

The articulating scissors and human hands offer a nice projection of visual poetry while a beatific portrait of Vincent Price -this his last feature film- curlicues in opposition from the clockwise torquing type.

Everything moving to Danny Elfman’s otherworldly, natural score.

USA | 1990 | Color | 1.85:1 | English

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“You never got me down, Ray.”

Sometimes the opening frames of Raging Bull remind me of the linear roll of a marble in To Kill A Mockingbird’s opening sequence. Both opening sequences share the perfect music (Raging Bull’s theme is Intermezzo from the opera Cavalleria Rusticana, by Pietro Mascagni), incredibly visualized soundscapes, beautiful black and white cinematography, and a refined sense of gritty production design.

A row of shapes sits in judgment, while old-timey flashbulbs pop and die with the slowness of the tragedy that is about to unfold. What do those photos look like?

Robert DeNiro’s Jake La Motta is a coiled human animal, caged like a note on sheet music; fierce, balletic and balanced to its function. The ropes of the ring are framed like bars of music. Indeed, “give me a stage where this bull here can rage…that’s entertainment.”

Director Martin Scorsese:

Listening to Scorsese’s commentary track for “The Set-Up” we learn of that superb film’s influence on what is arguably his magnum opus.

USA | 1980 | Blavk and White/Color | 1.85:1 | English

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Commentary excerpt with cinematographer Michael Chapman

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(From the Raging Bull: Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray)

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“You’re a fighter, you gotta fight.”

Hammers wait. The boxers step to the fore and we see none of the blows but all of the consequence. Moments, perhaps rounds, pass with a nice transitional crossfade and the sluggish weaken.

Viewer as spectator. Based on Joseph Moncure March’s narrative poem, directed by Robert Wise and shot by Milton Krasner, A.S.C., the cold opening title sequence to “The Set-Up” focuses solely on the legs of the combatants with Wise’s credit framed by a fall. The unintelligible holler of the crowd serves as the only score.

Martin Scorsese on the commentary track, referring to Wise, “You know you are in the hands of a master.”

USA | 1949 | Black and White | 1.37:1 | English

Direct Link: 480p (QuickTime, 640×480, 13 MB, 00:57)

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Sine waves shimmering upon a black harbor on an elegant loop. The music a string orchestra (a quartet?) piano and bell.

USA/Germany | 1995 | Color | 2.35:1 | English/Hungarian/Spanish/French

Commentary excerpt with composer and editor John Ottman.

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(From the The Usual Suspects: Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray)

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Art of the Title would like to give thanks. At the centerpiece of your meal remember, the Thanksgiving holiday is about people. And so, “Soylent Green.”

Sequence editor Chuck Braverman, known for his flash frame kinestasis montage/films, opens director Richard Fleischer’s film adaptation of “Soylent Green” with images of the blossoming bourgeoisie. The plague of population pressures is then conveyed with such surehanded conviction that you believe, we all believe, just how easily the cookie crumbles.

USA | 1973 | Color | 2.35:1 | English

Direct Link: 480p (QuickTime, 848×368, 27 MB, 02:17)

Commentary excerpt with director Richard Fleischer.

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(From the Soylent Green DVD)

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What it is to be reborn.

A closed-mouthed catfish and cheery gator serve as an aquatic admission into a place that suffers the rot of intolerance and blackish baptisms. Stick shacks sulk under Spanish moss. Jace Everett’s song “Bad Things” plucks and coos over the risque and the religious imagery of Alan Ball’s title sequence for “True Blood” contextualizing the slutty and the sweet swamp-goth vampiric mise-en-scène.

Elements of this sequence have been compared to elements of Andrew Douglas’ mesmeric, stunning, one of a kind film “Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.” Art of the Title’s intention in providing the opening to “Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus” is pure. It is very good southern surrealist cinema.

USA | 2008 | Color | 1.78:1 | English

Direct Link: 480p (QuickTime, 848×480, 19 MB, 01:31) + 720p (QuickTime, 1280×720, 37 MB, 01:31)

Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus – Opening Scene

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Digital Kitchen’s True Blood Featurette (contains nudity)

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John Carpenter’s menacing theme for “Halloween” sends some into a panic and some smiling. Composed and performed by the man himself, Carpenter’s influences were Bernard Herrmann and Ennio Morricone (Carpenter worked with Morricone on his masterwork, “The Thing.”). The opening sequence shares some similarities with a film that Carpenter adores, Roy Ward Baker’s “Quatermass and the Pit.”

The sequence plays like a blackhearted processional we’d like to writhe away from but the pull of this simpleton’s grin has us. A flicker to contemplate and a well timed fade to black of the image leaves only Carpenter’s credit and his music. And our eyes, open with fear.

Direct Link | Format: QuickTime H.264, 864×368 | Size: 22.4 MB | Running Time: 2:20 | Year: 1978

720P HD Version | Format: QuickTime H.264, 1280×544 | Size: 48.9 MB | Running Time: 2:20 | Year: 1978

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The title sequence to Hammer’s “Quatermass and the Pit” does more to fascinate than horrify. The jigsaw skull and satisfyingly sinister score gets it right, as does the push through to the fateful gloom of Hobbs End Station.

The great John Carpenter used elements for Prince of Darkness and, perhaps, Halloween?

Direct Link | Format: QuickTime H.264, 640×384 | Size: 4.6 MB | Running Time: 0:34 | Year: 1967

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Licking tongues of fiery fire and tinkling looking-glass shards of pebbled glass bring softcore sizzle for the Guns & Ammo set.

Picture Mill’s vision for the end titles for “Max Payne” feature a locked and loaded font worthy of Thor that has you in its sights like a well oiled Reagan-era actioner.

Bullet holes as full flooded spotlights! Well worn gunmetal in recoil! Mayhem ensues.

Direct Link | Format: QuickTime H.264, 864×368 | Size: 22.7 MB | Running Time: 2:08 | Year: 2008

720p HD Version | Format: QuickTime H.264, 1280×544 | Size: 48.2 MB | Running Time: 2:08 | Year: 2008

Images Extra: Download 16 HD stills from the title sequence, plus original pitch board (8.2MB Zip Archive)

Extra: Production Details document (PDF)

Video Extra: Max Payne CGI Process

Direct Link | Format: QuickTime H.264, 720×544 | Size: 12 MB | Running Time: 0:55 | Year: 2008

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What better way to navigate this cardboard existence than in a cardboard vessel?

Art of the Title spoke with Slovenian project producer Marko Miladinović (Armada) on director Žiga Pokorn’s (NuFrame) title sequence for ‘Brat Bratu’ (Brother to Brother), a sitcom based on the cult British series ‘Only Fools and Horses.’

“The task was to design a visual identity and visuals for the fictional firm B&B that uses a secondhand circus van as transportation. The van was our main character in the production of the opening animation, correspondent jingles, and credits. The visual identity reflects the awkwardness of the main characters. Their world is a mixture of old-fashioned styles, used things and charming bad taste. As they are in the smuggling business we set the stage as if they are living in cluttered cardboard boxes.

The text of the title song was our main guide. All the props mentioned in the song were used as clutter in this unidentified 3D world that the characters drive through just to get home, to turn on the TV and start the show. We used 2D photos of all the props, built a 3D city out of cardboard texture and shot the main characters in stop motion. All of that was constructed, designed and lit in the 3D program Maya, and at the end composited into the final animation using Shake.”

The rolling ditty and visual disorientation reminds us of Michel Gondry’s video for “Lucas With The Lid Off.”

Direct Link | Format: QuickTime H.264, 720×400 | Size: 14.2 MB | Running Time: 1:21 | Year: 2008

Hi Res Version | Format: QuickTime H.264, 1024×576 | Size: 29.9 MB | Running Time: 1:21 | Year: 2008

Related Extra: Lucas – Lucas with the Lid Off Music Video
Michel Gondry’s inspired single take video.

Direct Link | Format: QuickTime H.264, 640×480 | Size: 42 MB | Running Time: 3:56 | Year: 1994