Title sequences: Dawn of the dead vs. Four lions

Dawn of the dead and Four lions title sequence comparison



The style of titling that has been used throughout the title sequence of Dawn of the dead is over black. This is used because the title sequence is used to provide the audience with information of the outbreak of the zombie virus, and having the film cut to the over black title creates more time to give the audience information on the outbreak.

The first title of the sequence introduces the distributor of the film, in this case Universal pictures. Introducing the distributor is a common occurrence within many films, however during the title sequence in Dawn of the dead, trivial roles such as ‘Special make up effects’. This is because of the large amount of information the filmmakers want to pass on to the audience, and to do this successfully they have to add as much information as possible before the main section of the film begins, the information is given by the camera shots in between the title sequences, therefore the more title sequences the more information.

After the title sequence has introduced a contributor to the film an exit animation is used. The exit animation that has been used is a trickle out, this introduces the theme of bleeding, this is because the trickle is a deep red, therefore the texts resembles blood seeping from a cut. This also gives the impression that the film is going to be a gory horror.

In between the titles are clips of what appear to be either surveillance or news reports, the subject of these are the outbreak of the zombie virus, this gives information to the audience about the current state of America. These clips have been edited to give the impression that they have been filmed in a hurry, for example some of the clips are shaky, this gives the impression that the whole of America is in a state of emergency.

Whilst the title sequences are running, a non diegetic soundtrack is being played over the current soundtrack, the non diegetic soundtrack is "The man comes around" sung by Johnny Cash, this track is used to represent the man who comes around as the virus, this gives the impression that the virus is infected as many as possible and you don't have a choice.





Whereas with Four lions, the titles are a lot plainer, this is because the movie doesn’t need to give the audience information about the events. Four lions uses over clip titles this is because they aren’t important, and don’t need to build suspense for the coming film.