Credits - opening and closing

Credits (Opening and/or closing)

After doing some research into the way thriller films present opening credits. I noticed that most of them have the names of actors/actresses and other important members of the films names fading in and out to some eerie music. The most dominant colour for the words is red. Red is used as it represents danger and quite possibly death. The eerie music used adds to the tension which is being created from the actual film, which is very commonly playing in the background also. The soundtrack will very often be a very slow starting track, which gets faster and faster as it progresses, and gets closer to the climax occurring. 

During the particular opening I analysed, which was actually one from a university student who got top grades for their whole film, I realised that only one character was focused on, although another character was seen. This shows that having less characters, is primarily more effective and makes a good thriller. Behind all this, was the credits which were flashing past, which I often just looked past. This could mean two things - The credits are unimportant, and should not be too in the way, or from this particular example, the credits were too small, and in our film, we should make them more noticeable. I think the credits are not really too important, and only act as a distraction, and should not be made too big or too noticeable, as it could possibly ruin the film going on behind it.

Here is the example I analysed mainly for closing credits ...







For closing credits, it is very common for a soundtrack, or the only soundtrack to be used. The background is very often black, and the text is very often block white and fairly big and noticeable. 

During the closing scene of Inception, which is the film I analysed for this particular segment, I noticed nothing much was really going on, except from the text. This could mean that the point of the ending credits is to really not over do it, and keep things plain and simple. Personally I believe that a little story through the closing credits can be very succesful, but to keep to the codes and conventions of thriller films, it is best to stick with what the pro's do!

The text appears as a fade in, fade out. It is really simple and actually for some reason, adds a lot of tension. I think it's because we have just seen a really mind-blowing film, and we are now seeing the normal back in place, and the juxtaposition really throws us out of place!

Here is the ending credits to Inception. Unfortunately I couldn't find a brilliant copy of it, so I got one off youtube. There is a weird spinning table-top for some reason, so please skip to 1:40 to see the actual credits and soundtrack!