Opening titles in a short film

M

mrl72

Well-known member
Hey all

I know it's considered bad form to start a short film with lengthy opening credits (especially if everyone is pretty unknown) but my film starts with a very long dolly shot that establishes the characters. Is there anything against putting a few credits over this shot? Maybe just the principal cast, writer, producer and director?

Cheers.
 
If the long dolly shot that establishes the characters isn't interesting enough without opening credits you might want to reconsider the shot. Unless its stylized as a character introduction, which it doesn't sound like this is, I as a viewer would consider opening credits a red flag and I'd be a lot more likely to stop watching.
 
Cassius said:
If the long dolly shot that establishes the characters isn't interesting enough without opening credits you might want to reconsider the shot. Unless its stylized as a character introduction, which it doesn't sound like this is, I as a viewer would consider opening credits a red flag and I'd be a lot more likely to stop watching.
Click to expand...

Ok so that made no sense whatsoever. lol.
 
The opening titles can go for as long as the background imagery is sufficiently interesting or beautiful to hold the viewers attention. There are plenty of films with very long title sequences. I just watched Source Code the other night and the opening titles contained almost as many individual credits as the closing credits. In this case they opted for long sequences of beautiful aerial shots, the interest derived from the beauty of the rich colours of a perfect day and the interest from aerial shots, a perspective most people have rare occasion to witness therefore elevating the mundane. Another classic approach used by too many movies to mention is to rove around a room, highlighting objects of interest to develop expectations about a character before we even meet them.

If your opening sequence contributes (sounds like it does) and is interesting enough to hold the viewers attention then go for it. You can always edit or replace it if it's not working. You can't include it if you don't shoot it.
 
I've usually found that the longer the opening credits for a short film, the worse it is likely to be.
 
I think if the opening credits are designed to assist the story then go for it.

The next shot following this sequence is the lead doing a story on the killer responsible for this scene and looking at the final credit image from the sequence.

 
The test is simple - would you watch the sequence if it wasn't full of opening credits? If so, then fine - as mentioned above, the movie Source Code is a good example, interesting to watch even if you ignore the credits. Otherwise, why are you boring your audience with info they don't care about?

My short films have opening credits of well under 10 seconds - the opening is where you either grab an audience or they lose interest and stop watching.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top