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Title Sequence

In this assignment, you will create a title sequence for a fictitious television series of your own devising. This title sequence will be completed as a short, slideshow video, between 1 and 2 minutes long.

This title sequence will comprise a set of still images prepared in Photoshop and then edited together in iMovie with effects such as panning, zooming, and transitions between shots. The sequence be composed of 12 to 30 images and timed with music.

Movement and Layering

Composing this title sequence will give you an opportunity to learn and apply two complementary sets of visual-design principles:

Movement and layering are two dimensions of visual representation which your title sequence will use together to achieve its effects and suggest its meanings.

Premise for the Series

The premise of your TV series can be entirely original, or can be adapted from a published book, short story, or other non-visual narrative. It may be something in between.

Whether original or adapted, the premise provides you with the essential topics, themes, tensions, conflicts, symbols, etc. from which you will compose the content and create the styles of the title sequence. However, avoid simply surveying all these topics and themes. Effective title sequences often choose very specific and selective situations, objects, or themes which stand for the larger, more numerous experiences of the show itself.

Composition of your title sequence should be informed by a critical understanding of the characters, plot-generating conflicts, settings, themes, and tone which make a series concept. See more about this on the Prospectus for a Series Premise page.

Note that--unlike movies, novels, and stories--the essential conflicts in a television series are usually never resolved (until the series ends).

Narrative Movement in Time or Space

With this project, you will learn and employ visual narrative principles variously known as editing, cinematography, montage, visual style, etc. to create a sense of movement and/or progression (movement of a character, the apparent movement of the viewer through space and/or time, etc.)

We will discuss a number of sample title sequences in class and read Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics to learn narrative techniques of plot and/or montage in visual texts.

Hybrid Media Layering

Together with the techniques of narrative movement, you will also get to know and experiment with techniques of Hybrid Media Design

These techniques include, for example, the mingling of 2D and 3D realities, the explicit layering of different media styles and languages into a single visual experience.

We will look at this phenomenon in many sample title sequences, music videos, and other contemporary visual forms.

Your commentary will give you the opportunity to explain the instances of hybrid media layering in your project.

Technical Visual Criteria

This assignment will emphasize the composition of shots, backgrounds, and the techniques of sequencing visual images for continuity, layering, and other narrative effects.

Another criteria is that your shots be composed to accommodate and highlight textual titles and credits, as well as to perform panning and zooming without revealing the image edges.

The Structural Logic ("Plot Phrase")

Your title sequence should have a structural logic or "plot."

For instance, this plot might take the viewer from one place, time, or condition to another; or follow a character performing some action or experiencing some change.

This so-called plot might be defined by literal, physical movement (then to now, outside to in, out-there to home), or by a metaphorical/symbolic movement (dark to light, denial to acceptance, forgetting to remembering, uncertainty to clarity, etc.).

Generally, the structural logic will be expressed by narrative choices, with additional meaning and implications achieved through the non-narrative layering of hybrid media effects.

To help you envision the structural logic of your sequence, I will ask you to come up with a "plot phrase" to define it: examples: "Falling" for Mad Men or "Going Home" for The Simpsons

Two Plot Formats to Avoid for this Assignment:

1. Avoid simply telling the backstory of your premise. Instead, your title sequence should introduce your series/movie's essential tensions, themes, and tone See the Gilligan's Island title sequence as an example of a simple backstory.

2. Avoid simply presenting a visual list of characters/actors without any narrative structure or direction.
While these are common formats for title sequences, they won't serve well as models for this particular assignment.

Commentary

In addition to fulfilling the requirements of excellent commentaries, your Title Sequence commentary should:

Criteria

Sample Narrative Title Sequence Project

Examples of Professional Title Sequences

Other Resources