Sin City Opening Title Analysis

Sourced from hullcomics.com

The first opening I watched was 'Sin City'. The style of the clip resembles a graphic novel, with a monochrome film  The first thing you notice in the scene is the music. It first starts with city night ambience before the bass kicks in at 0:06.  At 0:10 there is the use of a saxophone which is rather uncommon in thriller but reminds me of jazz music for film noir. The music is more action than suspense but that link with film noir does suggest mystery which often features in thrillers. At 1:18 the music reaches a crescendo when it shows that the movie is based on Frank Miller's graphic novels. This rise in music can be used to show important people in the production of film. The music returns to normal once they introduced the music creators which is a clever way of using their own music to show they are also important. Cello is added to the part where it introduces two of the most important members of the cast - the directors. After they have been credited the music fades out with the screen that fades to black.

Before the credits roll in there is a quick glance at the scenery. The scene fades in from black to a long shot of a woman and a man on the roof of a high-riser. Using this type of shot allows us to see the monochrome city night settings but the red of the women's dress draws the audience's eyes to the middle of the shot where the action is taking place. The red is clever way of showing blood and the death of the woman as well as making it the focus of the scene.

Between 0:02 and 0:06 it zooms out to an establishing shot. The red is barely visible and the focus is gone.  We now focus on the settings. We have an aerial view of the city. Though this city is CGI, this type of scene would normally be filmed by helicopter so you can get the flexibility of movement. This type of shot is commonly used at the start of a film so that the audience can get an idea of where the film is placed and if you carefully look at the mise en scene you can also get an idea of what type of movie it will be. At 0:16 it goes from aerial shot to a bird's-eye-view of the city. This is where the title of the movie comes in. Its is cleverly incorporated into the city, using buildings clumped together to mark out the letters. At 0:21 you can see the title fully. Most films tend to credit some of the crew or cast before introducing the title, however in this movie they put it first so they can make it look more interesting with the buildings.

At 0:30 the cast has started to be announced. They use black and white to go with the graphic novel theme but use red for the writing as it stands out over the rest of the shot. It makes the writing look powerful. The images that are used to represent the characters are not still but slowly move left or right, usually the opposite way to the writing. This makes the clip more lively and less boring than it would if it was just still. The use of fade outs make it seem more slow and calm.

At 1:18 it say that Sin City is based on graphic novels and who they were by. This would be useful to mention before the crew because more people are likely to stick around if they know it is based on the graphic novels because they might have read them and it would encourage them to watch the film.

After watch several film openings  the casting directors tend to be the first crew members announced. In the Sin City opening they are mentioned at 1:24 before the editors at 1:29. After this there are several more different crew members, usually the producers.

Mainly the music directors are before the actual directors. In 'Sin City' they were announced at 1:33.

I found out after watching many different thriller openings that the director usually is last in the opening title and it was the same in this case.

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All images are from artofthetitle.com